TR2/3/3A TR3 Clutch Slave Cyl Return Spring Size?

[RedTR3]

I have lost the pushrod return spring (Item 20 in manual) for the clutch slave cylinder. I want to pick up a spring at my local hardward shop - can anyone tell me what size spring this is? Thanks!

 

[TR3driver]

Lots more to springs than just length and diameter; the correct spring has a very high spring rate that I think you are unlikely to find locally.

So my advice is to order the proper spring from the usual suspects and, if appropriate, drive without it until it arrives. As long as the pushrod is adjusted for just a little bit of freeplay, lack of the spring won't damage anything. It probably will cause the pedal to vary somewhat (higher release point when you've used the clutch recently, going lower over time) but the car should still be drivable.

 

[Don Elliott]

Depending on the spring I get when I order one, I might get the right one or maybe it's one for the return on the throttle linkage to the firewall under carb #2. Or something else. When the last one I put on didn't do the job to my liking, I put in another spring beside it. The combination does a perfect job.

 

[Geo Hahn]

I drove my TR3A for many years before I realized there was supposed to be a spring there. Yowza!

I promptly obtained the correct spring and put it on. I do not recall exactly what the result was but the bottom line was the clutch was unusable. I removed the spring and everything was fine again.

I'm not recommending this to anyone -- in fact I probably have some problem that the correct set-up reveals but the absence of the spring conceals. Anyway, I've driven it w/o the spring for 27 years assuming that someday I'll have to do the clutch and then I'll see what's going on in there.

 

[angelfj1]

Geo: You mean to say that you've had the same clutch for all that time? How many miles?

 

[Geo Hahn]

About 40000. I can't say if that is unusual -- I think a lot of clutches get replaced because we're in there anyway (broken fork pin, failed TOB, failed pressure plate finger, gearbox overhaul, etc) so perhaps the unusual thing is that none of those other gearbox events have happened on this car.

Okay -- I'll concede that the broken fork pin may have happened without totally disabling the clutch action, hence the need to omit the spring.

 

[angelfj1]

that makes sense.

 

[TR3driver]

Okay -- I'll concede that the broken fork pin may have happened without totally disabling the clutch action, hence the need to omit the spring.

That could be it !

The TR2-4 clutch is beefier and has more friction area than the later 4A-6 clutch, plus of course the 2 liter doesn't make as much torque as the 2.5. They last virtually forever for me; I don't recall ever wearing out a friction plate (although that could be a statement about my memory :G).

In an estimated 200,000 miles, I've had one broken taper pin, and one TOB failure.

However, it wasn't all on the same clutch, as I wound up transplanting the engine & clutch from a 56 into my 59. I bought the 56 for it's OD, but decided it's engine was healthier than my old one too, so in it went. (Put my old clapped-out engine back in the 56 along with a non-OD gearbox and sold it for a 140% profit over what I paid for the car.) That's the TOB that died, in retrospect I should have kept the other one. Come to think of it, that's the gearbox that broke a taper pin as well.

When the TOB failed, I put in a new 4A style clutch along with an alloy flywheel. That was several years before the car got wrecked, but after the 2001 VTR, so maybe 30,000 miles on it with no further attention.