6G Celicas Forums

Within the last few days I started getting a whine from the car whenever I push the clutch in but it goes away as soon as the clutch is fully engaged or fully disenaged. It even happens if I ride the clutch without fully disengaging it (no, I do not ride my clutch normally). Everything is pointing to the throw out bearing. mad.gif CRAP! I just got the car all back together and now this. The sad thing is that this is a fairly new throwout bearing that came with my SPEC stage 2 clutch. If I had to guess, there is less than 2000 miles on this throwout bearing. Is the throwout bearing going bad or is it just going to make that noise because it is not an OEM part?

This post has been edited by HardHead93: Dec 11, 2016 - 5:33 PM

Did you grease the fork, shaft splines, and inside of the bearing? If not could be why it only makes noise as the clutch is being pushed in and released.

Dang it! I think that is it. I don't think I put grease back on when I put the LSD in the tranny. Ever since I started hearing this noise I have stopped driving the car. I hope I did not damage anything. I guess I am taking the tranny off to replace the throw out bearing and grease everything. Thanks for the info.

I find moly bearing grease lightly applied works really well for this situation. If it were me I'd grab a new Timken release bearing off RockAuto.

If it's not the above it could be gearbox bearings, either diff or shaft bearings. Which LSD did you install too btw?

After the install of my TRD LSD I had a whine - which I thought was the normal mechanical clutch plate noise, after a couple of months it turned out to be a bearing failure. Luckily the work was done by Toyota, and I could show I purchased the Toyota parts from Toyota New Zealand, so I was covered by warranty, I now have a unlimited lifetime warranty on the gearbox.

I know it is not the gearbox because I had a tranny shop I trust inspect the S54 before they put the LSD in and they said everything was in great working order. There was hardly any metal on the magnet inside the tranny plus there is only 130K'ish original un-boosted miles on this tranny and I have seen these trannies go for close to 300K miles if they are taken care of. I am a realist and I know I probably won't get that much out of this tranny because of the extra stress I am putting on it with my 3sgte. As far as LSD, I have a Helical Limited Slip Diff from an MR2. I got it used. It makes sense what Box said about the throw out bearing so I will start there. If the whine does not got away with me replacing the throw out bearing and greasing it properly then you may be right.

I've always been told to use an OEM throwout bearing over aftermarket bearing for our cars. I've never heard any specifics of bad aftermarket TOB's but it's one of those generally accepted rules here on the forum.

OEM bearings are very reasonably priced, so it makes sense. At least you'll know the quality control was better.

Aftermarket parts in general have let me down significantly more than OEM, and I've personally had particularly bad experience with Timken, so if I were in your shoes I'd just fork out the extra money for OEM.

At least you can just leave the gearbox hanging in the car, not have to drop it down for this job.

This makes me a tiny bit nervous about installing Exedy TOB in my 7g GT-S that came with the Exedy kit... I hope it lasts, cause this job is a lot more involved on a 7GC.

I was going to suggest OEM but for the 6th gen GT you can get the Timken/Koyo for right under $20 shipped off RA at the moment since they're selling off private labeled packages. Timken/Koyo, NTK, or Nachi is probably the o.e. manufacturer anyway, but I've always had good luck those and always go with them if possible when it comes to any bearing as they're o.e. suppliers for good reason. I'd price check and if possible determine the manufacturer on the o.e. bearing and then decide from there.

For what it's worth Exedy makes really good clutches, and I can't swear to it but I'm fairly sure they source their release bearings from one of the above mentioned companies or at least that seemed to be the case a few years ago when I helped do my brother's Maxima. You should be able to look at the release bearing and find a brand stamped on it.

How do you let the gear box hang for this job? Do you leave the driver's side motor mount attached? I know I have to take off the front and rear motor mounts and support the engine when I unbolt the tranny. If I don't have to take the tranny completely out of the car, that would be awesome! My original plan is to drop the tranny out of the car on a jack, replace the TOB then jack it back into place. I am following what is posted in the following thread:
http://www.6gc.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=78327

This post has been edited by HardHead93: Dec 14, 2016 - 8:16 PM

I finally split the tranny from the engine and replaced the throwout bearing. Man, that was a pain in the butt! Once I got the throwout bearing out I immediately knew it was the problem. The old bearing sounded like sandpaper when I spun it while the new one was quiet. I thought the bearing failed due to lack of grease but that was not the case because there was plenty of grease on the part. It was just a crappy bearing. Like I said before, this is a throwout bearing that came with my SPEC stage 2 clutch kit that I installed about a year ago. Here is a picture of the old bearing and new one side by side.


To get to the throwout bearing I had to suspend the motor in the engine bay with an engine bar. Then drop the sub-frame to give me space to separate the tranny from the block. Then I was able to squeeze my hand in the belt housing to remove the throwout bearing with the shifter fork. I then replaced the throwout bearing and added some high temp auto grease. Below is a picture of the 3sgte hanging in the engine bay.

And a close up of the tranny split from the motor.


This post has been edited by HardHead93: Dec 27, 2016 - 1:57 AM

never use a bearing that comes with a clutch, unless its OEM... Always use an OEM throw out bearing

very true and recommended, although I did end up using the comp clutch bearing, its been ok since 2008.

Is this a swapped 3s on the stock s54 transmission?

What kind of problems do you normally see with the turbo motor on an S transmission instead of the E transmission?

Sorry for the late response. Yes this is a 4th gen 3sgte on a s54 tranny. I have not had any problems with the tranny on this engine. To be safe, I am running lightweight shockproof for the gear oil and I swapped from an open diff to a MR2 LSD out of the E153. I also am running a stage 2 spec clutch and a lightweight flywheel. I have heard that the weakness in this set up is the axles, not the tranny. I was told these axles tend to break over 300 hp (but I am not at 300 hp so I am good).

From the research I have done, the big difference between the s54 and the e153 are the gear ratios. The s54 tends to rev higher than the e153 in the same gears when doing a comparison. This is good for turbo spool but you tend to have to shift sooner in the s54 than the e153. This is speculation but I am guessing that an e153 would have a better zero to 60 mph time than a s54 with all other things being equal because the s54 car would have to shift to 3rd gear while the e153 could stay in 2nd (2 gear shifts vs 1).

This post has been edited by HardHead93: Jan 27, 2017 - 1:28 AM

From what I've "heard", the S box starts breaking gears with over 250HP. Some guy snapped 2nd gear under boost. Just remember reading that somewhere, don't have the source.

Also, you can change the final drive to the camry 3.944 from celica's 4.176 (some celicas in Europe come with 3.944 from factory). That's what I did - camry final drive and 5th gear, celica 1-4 gears. Decent amount of work, as I had to completely disassemble the output shaft (final drive gear is part of the shaft), but throwing it as an option for future readers. Longer 5th gear for highway cruising, shorter 1-4 for zipping everywhere else.


Curious on how you coerced an E153 diff into an S-series box. Are you sure it was an E153 MR2 and not the N/A S54?

If the E-series diff fits, you'd have to use e-series CV axles. But, I've never heard of that before. They also look kinda different.

Please elaborate.

My fault it is an LSD out of the MR2 but not the e153. I bought it used in Ebay with this description, "Toyota Helical Limited Slip Differential LSD MR2 Spyder Celica Lotus C56 C60 C64." I guess this LSD fits multiple transmission. All I had to do was move over the plastic speedo gear and the huge diff gear. My Celica axles fit fine with this diff. On the left is the MR2 LSD and on the right is the open diff that comes in the Celica S54.




I heard the teeth on the S54 transmission can be a little more delicate. I also heard some of the guys running S54 transmissions on MR2s are doing 400hp with a stock 4th gen 3sgte. I wonder how long the tranny and the engine will last pushing them that hard.

This post has been edited by HardHead93: Jan 27, 2017 - 7:43 PM

Awesome thanks,

I had noticed that the factory always upgrades to the E series transmission when it goes to turbo. But by the time you hassle with getting the mounts and the axles to work for an MR2 e153 you just as well go and get an st205 and do the full awd conversion. Which is a project for the future.
In the mean time I'm going to build my AE92 Corolla because it has the 4age stock. But I'm still in the same boat with a C52 transaxle. I can put a lim slip in it but once I boost it I'm afraid the tranny won't last too long. But I probably wont go over 250hp anyway.