clutch

BJ60 Clutch Saga Pt.3: Return Of The (many) Parts

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Fuck, this is becoming a trilogy of trilogies at this point. Hence, I’ve renamed the past couple posts to fit with this unintended theme.

Okay, where to start?

Well, I have literally the most inconvenient year of BJ60 that was produced. “sure, yeah right,” you may be thinking – Allow me to elaborate.

Remember how I had an issue with my master cylinder not fitting due to the time it was made? Yeah no, that’s nothing compared to this. The reason my slave cylinder wouldn’t fit on soon became a source of confusion for me.

“surely they wouldn’t have had multiple bell-housings made for one model year, right?”

Guess what.

Yep. One year of BJ60 – 1985 – Toyota used a different mounting point on the bell-housing; not even slightly compatible with other years. I came to this discovery upon finding no record anywhere of a part like mine existing. The only source that even listed it was PartSouq and even then it was out of stock. Nothing else showed any sign of it; the only part anyone had anywhere that could fix my problem, is a genuine rebuild kit.

Out of curiosity, I called Stampede Toyota to see if they at least had a slave cylinder. My conversation with the Toyota Parts Guy ($TPG) went somewhat like this:

$TPG: okay, yours is… ’85 you said?

$Me: Yes, the 4 cylinder diesel.

$TPG: hmmm…

He does that about 6 more times. Over the 4 minute span of searching his catalogue.

$TPG: So as it turns out, your truck is the only year that Toyota used this part. Ever.

$Me: okay….?

$TPG: And that part is now completely discontinued.

$Me: …huh. What about cylinder rebuild kits? Any chance there are any sitting around anywhere still?

$TPG: Well, the catalogue shows one left in all our inventory. All the way in California, for $88. Once it’s gone, that will be discontinued.

$Me: welp. Thanks for searching around, I appreciate the effort

So that was that. There’s one rebuild kit left in Toyota Motor Corp.’s stock, and it costs twice as much as PartSouq’s rebuild kit. Fun. I’ve ordered the part, FedEx claims it’ll arrive at my house by this Friday the 22nd. I can’t goddamned wait.

Lesson learned, I suppose. If you have an old import vehicle, check before you order parts that they’ll be the right ones. I’ll update this when if the parts are installed this weekend. Sigh.

BJ60 Clutch Saga Pt.2: The Clutch Strikes Back

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Jeez this is endless. I’ll give a timeline of my past few days:

  1. Last week, no truck because no master cylinder.
  2. Thursday night, I ordered a proper master cylinder from RockAuto.
  3. Friday, drove to Chestermere for a temporary master cylinder from a fellow RMLCA member’s parts truck. (Thanks Peter and Kevin!)
  4. Saturday morning, installed the master cylinder. Went for a test drive. Truck drove, but required the clutch to be pushed many times before anything happened.
  5. Saturday afternoon, looked at the slave cylinder on the bell housing. Drenched in brake fluid. Thank goodness I have a new slave cylinder already, I’ll install that tomorrow.

“Thank goodness I can drive it after I install this new slave cylinder, it’s been two weeks”

… I thought foolishly.

Turns out, the stupid fucking bullshit catalogue, that my Unnamed Local Auto Parts Store™ uses, doesn’t understand a single fucking thing about BJ60 land cruisers.

Once I got over the fact that the slave cylinder was completely the wrong one, I tried to fix the current one temporarily. Nope to that as well. After I thought I’d at least slightly fixed it, I went for another drive; as I pulled off to check the clutch fluid level, I promptly got stuck in a snowbank. Up to the top of my RF&RR tires. In a parking lot. A flat parking lot. Where 5ft away there was visible ground.

After standing in a snowbank for half an hour freezing my feet off hoping for help, I eventually got out with the help of a nice man in his new GMC. Sadly as a result of my earlier attempts to free myself, what was left of the clutch was even worse. It still kinda, barely, slightly worked, but not very well. I got home, and it completely lost all functionality as I got to my house. Upon stepping out, something smelled like burning. I still don’t know if that was my clutch. I don’t think I want to know if that was my clutch.

Come on, world. Gimme a fucking break, will ya?

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BJ60 Clutch Saga Pt.1: A Lost Hope

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Holy shit it’s difficult to find parts you’d think would be very common.

Last week, it was -35° Celsius here in good old YYC. Naturally, I set the Webasto (my 12v diesel coolant preheater) to warm up the engine before I got outside that morning. Stupid me, however, forgot that the other fluids would still have the viscosity of molasses, and upon pushing the clutch in to start the engine, I triggered a set of events that have caused me irritation and pain for the past week now.

I went to select first gear, but the clutch went all the way to the floor with no hesitation. Okay, annoying. Maybe it’s just cold. I drove all the way to school that morning, and all the way back, with no clutch. That evening, I called my local auto parts store and ordered in a new clutch master cylinder. It would be here the next day.

Indeed it was. But it was the wrong one; in April of 1985 Toyota added a vacuum booster to the BJ60, thus requiring an entirely different sort of reservoir. Guess what exact month my particular 60 was made.

The nearest supposedly compatible proper cylinder was in Coquitlam BC, and would take a week to arrive. Today, it came in, and was also the wrong one. Granted, it was closer to correct this time, but still completely wrong; that one was meant for the non-boosted LC. After the (very helpful) folks at Bowness Auto looked through every supplier they could, they suggested I find the stock part number. I called Stampede Toyota, to be met with news that a new part from them would be…. $350. And Bowness still didn’t have any luck finding anything. Either I get one from FJParts or I call Steve at EBI and see if he’s got something. Fingers crossed. Or, maybe I try to rebuild the old one…?

More to come when I figure more out, but for now – if you have a vacuum boosted Canadian BJ60 built after April of 1985, you need this part number:

 

31401-60022-J

PART TWO