Leaderboard

Since day 1 my gearbox has not been acceptable in its operation. 1st to 2nd has always been crunchy, 2nd to 3rd intermittently crunchy and general gear selection poor. It would often clunk all the way to the back axle when engaging first which is a sure sign the clutch is not fully breaking and is dragging. The car went back to Toyota twice for "adjustment" with no improvement. I fitted Redline MTL oil and had Abbey fit MTEC shift springs. A little improvement but not significant. I read on the FRS forum about altering the bite point lower and tried this. Whilst it improved driveability it actually made the problem worse and the placebo effect soon wore off. I have been convinced from day 1 that the issue owners experience is clutch drag. Have experienced this so many times on bikes with cable operated clutches if the cable is not kept well lubricated and adjusted. Yesterday at The Trundle I sat in Subota Boys car and felt his clutch - ooer ! Totally different to mine. After he sat in my car we both agreed that my clutch felt like it had air in it. I was all prepared to do some bleeding this weekend when today I strayed across an excellent website. Read it through a couple of times and it all made sense. Watched the video a couple of times and the guy actually has a clutch assembly on the bench to show you what to do (same as moving bite point). I set my clutch this afternoon EXACTLY how he says and double checked it. The actuator is on top of the clutch housing so you don`t need the buddy he mentions to check actuator operation. I have just been out for a spin and can`t believe the difference. Bite point is probably now higher than from when I got it but gearchanges very very good. You can just feel the massive improvement. No baulking, no crunching and much much smoother. The pedal is more solid and feels exactly how it should, not like it has air in it. I highly recommend anyone with the crunchy nut gearbox to try this. It is just a 10 minute job. Read the website and watch the video a couple of times. The setting is quite critical it would appear. Perhaps this car is quite sensitive to the set up and a general assembly at the factory is not sufficient ? I`ll keep you posted but so far very very impressed. Toyota could do with taking note of this site: http://www.jackstransmissions.com/pages/clutch-drag-kills-synchros and the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vYJxQyjIhUw