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Supra troubles.. not fun.


marcAB10
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Well.. I've had some troubles..

 

So i owned my NA for a year and a half, i loved it but craved the power.. So December '08 was the big date for it's NA-TT conversion, i had managed to scrape the cash together and off it went.. one week later and £2600 (got an intercooler, filter and BOV fitted too) and also got a RPS 'stage 2 sport 6 puck' clutch fitted at the same time and all was well.. for a while..

 

5 months later, with only weekend use.. everything still seemed fine, driving to my folks house as a few things i had bought arrived and needed to pick them up.. after maybe an hours visit i went back and started the car, imediately there was a loud knocking and the engine idles down and off.. it was loud enough for my brother to hear in his bedroom so he ran out to see what was up..

 

To say i was worried was an understatement.. i originally thought maybe there was no oil in the car but when i checked again in the day light the day after it was fine so off it went to a local Japanese car specialists, they took the rocker cover off but couldn't see anything wrong.. charged me £190.., i decided to take it to a garage that i had heard a lot of good things about, it took me 2 months before i could afford to have anymore work done on it but after that Keith (kslb) was kind enough to trailer my car the hour and a half to the garage. (thanks mate)

 

So.. it turns out that the knocking was a chunk of plastic/rubber that had got lodged under one of the valves.. fortunately there was no damage and it was just a case of removing it.. unfortunately it was rather big so it was head off time.. new gasket ect.. I'd like to add that since getting the NA-TT conversion the engine hadn't been touched, nothing else fitted, nothing removed.. How anything this big got in the engine is a mystery.. hhmmm

 

So my car was off the road for 3 months alltogether.. getting the engine fixed, plastic/rubber 'thing' removed cost me £1500..

 

Now i have had the car back for a few weeks now and my new clutch, with only 5 months use has started mayjorly slipping.. so i am not really using the car at the moment.. thats another £331 wasted..

 

So.. i havn't had a great time with the car since december to say the least.. and have spent a total of £4290 since december on engine work alone with the prospect of another £400ish clutch plus fitting.. which frankly i just can't afford.. hopefully 2010 will be a better year for me and the supe.

 

What was stuck under the valve........

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/8862/picture118s.jpg

Edited by marcAB10 (see edit history)
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Unfortunately clucthes are one o those items that can wear in no time with varied forms of misuse and also it doesn't help if the garage that fits it, doesn't fit it correctly which will again cause premature wear.

 

Best of luck for 2010

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Is it really possible to wear out the clutch in 5 months of only - tame - weekend driving? I'd have thought, given that criteria, that it would surely be fitted wrong to go so quick? :\

 

Totally gutted for you and these occurances Marc. Knowing how much you adore the thing it's a joke how many issues have happened of late. Never mind the cutting out all the time for 400 miles!

Edited by James (see edit history)
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Holy crap dude, that's some serious bad luck. I can't imagine where the rubber crap has come from, I can only imagine that between the transition of the TT lump from the donor car to yours, someone has dropped something into the oil filler hole, in fact, come to think of it, it could be the rubber bottom to the oil cap :shock:, Its then rattled around between the cams until it finally fell into the valve area.

 

With regard to the clutch, the RPS are quite well renowned as being great quality. Where was the bite point on the pedal when you had the clutch fitted,? If it was too high up the pedal, you could suggest it was never engaging properly and was always slipping, just not to the point where it actually gave way. Get it back to whoever fitted it mate, weekend light use should not wear a 6 puck sport clutch out so quickly. From you current mods you've stated, you're not even running BPU power, so it should have lasted years.

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Hi Marc.

 

That bit of plastic rubber/looks famillier to me, I had a problem with my throttle about a year ago it was sticking open at nearly W O T which was real sceary, after lots of stripping down and searching I found a bit of plastic/rubber just like that jambed in the throttle.

 

After lots more searching I found that the air pipe that runs from the SMIC along the bottom of the radiator where one of the joints, at the inside end of the pipe, had degraded and bits had broken off and I'm pretty sure thats where the "stuff" came from, looks just like the bit in your pic.

 

Sorry to hear that you're having a lot of s**t and that clutch shouldn't have failed already, should have bought a TT to start with would have been cheaper.

 

Bob.

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With regard to the clutch, the RPS are quite well renowned as being great quality. Where was the bite point on the pedal when you had the clutch fitted,? If it was too high up the pedal, you could suggest it was never engaging properly and was always slipping, just not to the point where it actually gave way. Get it back to whoever fitted it mate, weekend light use should not wear a 6 puck sport clutch out so quickly. From you current mods you've stated, you're not even running BPU power, so it should have lasted years.

 

 

I had a go of the clutch when he got it so we could compare them and it was almost at the top of the travel of the clutch pedal. No doubt marc can tell you more

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With regard to the clutch, the RPS are quite well renowned as being great quality. Where was the bite point on the pedal when you had the clutch fitted,? If it was too high up the pedal, you could suggest it was never engaging properly and was always slipping, just not to the point where it actually gave way. Get it back to whoever fitted it mate, weekend light use should not wear a 6 puck sport clutch out so quickly. From you current mods you've stated, you're not even running BPU power, so it should have lasted years.

 

As monsween said, the biting point was allways very very high.. i am the first to admit that i don't know a great deal about performance clutchs nor the inner working of engines so i trusted the garage/person who fitted it..

 

I have got back to the person who fitted the clutch but there answer.. and i quote.. "They cant be fitted wrong".....

 

After lots more searching I found that the air pipe that runs from the SMIC along the bottom of the radiator where one of the joints, at the inside end of the pipe, had degraded and bits had broken off and I'm pretty sure thats where the "stuff" came from, looks just like the bit in your pic.

 

i never had the SMIC, i had a FMIC fitted when the conversion was done, i suppose if it was that stuff it could have been there before it came out of the donor car and in the engine during the conversion...

Edited by marcAB10 (see edit history)
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As monsween said, the biting point was allways very very high.. i am the first to admit that i don't know a great deal about performance clutchs nor the inner working of engines so i trusted the garage/person who fitted it..

 

I have got back to the person who fitted the clutch but there answer.. and i quote.. "They cant be fitted wrong".....

 

 

 

 

Sure there's not much you can get wrong when it comes to actually fitting the clutch, but the pedal adjustment is crucial, especially if you're going from stock to aftermarket, or vice versa. You may or may not know, but I recently removed the 6 puck from mine and fitted a stock one, the biting point with the new stock one was literally millimeters from the carpet. So it must have been adjusted when the 6 puck was put in, if it was left in the same position, as I imagine yours was, then the 6 pucks biting point would have been right at the top, instead of in the lower half/middle area. So it must have been lowered. I had to raise mine up so the bite point is now about an inch from the carpet, so much more driveable.

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I wondered when this thread would appear .

 

I drove this car a while back at a DAT meet after listening to Marc bitching...complaining about it so i could hopefully shut him up and tell him its fine but it was a very high biting point , unlike anything i had driven before- a bit strange but as it wasn't my car i didnt think too much of it at the time really :innocent: :p .

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Sure there's not much you can get wrong when it comes to actually fitting the clutch, but the pedal adjustment is crucial, especially if you're going from stock to aftermarket, or vice versa. You may or may not know, but I recently removed the 6 puck from mine and fitted a stock one, the biting point with the new stock one was literally millimeters from the carpet. So it must have been adjusted when the 6 puck was put in, if it was left in the same position, as I imagine yours was, then the 6 pucks biting point would have been right at the top, instead of in the lower half/middle area. So it must have been lowered. I had to raise mine up so the bite point is now about an inch from the carpet, so much more driveable.

 

 

So does that mean that he could possibly just get the clutch pedal adjusted rather than change the clutch itself?

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So does that mean that he could possibly just get the clutch pedal adjusted rather than change the clutch itself?

 

Yeah, if its the same as the MR2 (only one i have done), you can adjust the pedal from the footwell. The online manual should have instructions on it. Its normal for the biting point to move a bit once its broken in properly, the MR2 was ridiculously low when the RPS was fitted so i adjusted it a little. It then got higher on its own over a period of months, not much but i noticed it.

 

Its possible the same thing has happened here but its gone past the extent of travel for the setting of the pedal.

 

Fingers crossed.

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Guest Nickamsweet

y0 if the clutch pedal has not been adjusted then I am guessing that the pressure plate might not be putting it's entire pressure on the friction plate?

 

With the current condition of the friction plate, if i were to adjust this to lower the biting point then at worst it will remain the same?? It won't cause more slippage etc...

 

Just worried I do this then Marc cannot get home tonight lol.

 

 

Also if I were to adjust it could it mean that the friction plate might still be ok? and last a good couple thousand more miles with the correct pressure... or is it the case that once the friction plate slips it will continue to slip?

Edited by Nickamsweet (see edit history)
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Everytime you pull away, you slip the clutch. So as long as the clutch has not been slipping excessively, it may be fine. Have you had any bad clutch smells? Smells usually indicate severe slippage and wear.

 

Sure, adjust the clutch bite point down, you may find you can rescue it. :thumbs:

 

To do it, push the drivers seat all the way back, then dive into the footwell headfirst with a torch. Look up at the clutch pedal, you'll see a brass bar. On this brass bar, you'll see a lock nut on one end, with a larger hex adjustment behind it, crack off the lock nut and adjust it using the larger hex. Wind the bar in, in a clockwise motion. Only minor adjustments are needed. A couple of turns will pull the bite point down from the top, to the middle. Good luck. :thumbs:

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Guest Nickamsweet
Everytime you pull away, you slip the clutch. So as long as the clutch has not been slipping excessively, it may be fine. Have you had any bad clutch smells? Smells usually indicate severe slippage and wear.

 

Sure, adjust the clutch bite point down, you may find you can rescue it. :thumbs:

 

To do it, push the drivers seat all the way back, then dive into the footwell headfirst with a torch. Look up at the clutch pedal, you'll see a brass bar. On this brass bar, you'll see a lock nut on one end, with a larger hex adjustment behind it, crack off the lock nut and adjust it using the larger hex. Wind the bar in, in a clockwise motion. Only minor adjustments are needed. A couple of turns will pull the bite point down from the top, to the middle. Good luck. :thumbs:

 

 

Awesome, cheers for the tips... should be the same with all cars correct? Did it on my S2000 and it is literally half a turn and there is some major adjustment...

 

Will try tomorrow and report :):cool:

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I had the same problem with the clutch on mine within only 1 month of the conversion being done and was told the answer was adjusting the pedal this did not fix the problem. I had to buy a new clutch and now the pedal is very very low to the ground. No problems so far and its a daily driver.

 

Post referring to my clutch issues.

http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?t=157015

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Hey Marc

 

Sorry to hear about your supra probs :( I went through and year of nothing but problems and expense and seriously thought of getting shot, but I bit the bullet, paid out and (fingers crossed!) all is well. You loose the supra luuurve for a while but once its all sorted - and the credit card is paid off ;) - you'll be smiling again.

 

chin up :hug:

 

Lxx

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