A buddy of mine finished installing the new clutch (a clutch kit) and a new flywheel on my 4runner. He bled the entire system and replaced all of the fluid. When the job was done, the truck shifted great, but the clutch pedal is extremely strong and springy, and the clutch engages right at the bottom, practically with the pedal JUST off the floor. The clutch is out with the pedal floored, and half an inch up it is fully engaged.

I don't really like that. Can I adjust this at all? At the pedal adjustment?

My old clutch disengaged right at the top of the pedal, so now I am re-learning to drive the truck.

Is this correct or should I adjust at the pedal? There is really no play at the top, the pedal is firm and springy from the top all the way down to the floor.

There should be an adjustment rod with a jamb nut at the pedal. Adjust it so the clutch is fully engages 1-2" from the pedal being released all the way out. You are probably slipping the clutch right now when you have it in or when changing gears. It also could be putting unwanted stress on the syncros.

Okay, I adjusted the pedal as much as possible, but I am in the situation where I cannot allow any free-play, otherwise I risk grinding in 1st and reverse gear. The pedal feels great, there is absolutely no air in the line, all fresh fluid, the clutch lets out super low thats all, but the pedal feels strong.

I ensured I am not riding the clutch with any pre-load: I jiggled the pedal as I adjusted to remove all of the free-play to gain the full stroke I required. As soon as the free-play was gone I locked it down, ensuring I did not have the rod being loaded by the pedals top height. Not the end of the world. A new master cyl might improve things, but quite honestly, outside of the clutch action being immediate down at the bottom of the swing, it works great. It grabs great, doesn't slip, and I don't even need any assistance with the gas to get going in 1st gear.

I don't think I am going to bother with it. I just need to re-learn my driving!

Unless any of the above sounds very wrong to anyone, I am pretty confident it is working well.

here is a way to test if your free play is enough go under truck locate slave cylinder push the clutch fork towards the slave cylinder , you should be able to push it in , if it wont budge you need to adjust more free play until you can push it in by hand. that was a trick I learned online somewhere

Okay I got everything figured out. Had to adjust the clutch pedal height to create more throw. The pedal was moved higher from 6" from floor pan to 6.5". Then the rod was re-adjusted to ensure there was no loading, maybe 1mm of free play, but absolutely no pre-loading by the pedal.

I understand that the clutch pedal height is out of spec by 0.3", and that the max from the pan is supposed to be 6.2", but whatever.

The clutch now engages at about 3/8th of the way up the travel, which solved all my problems. I don't know why the clutch was originally engaging immediately off the floor with everything in spec but it all seems to work perfect now with this quick adjustment.

Thanks for all the help.

I noticed the same thing on my runner when swapping clutch discs. Mine was a used unit I got to replace a oil soaked clutch.

I drove it for a few days and it went right back to the middle instead of the floor pan.

Hi Nate, I'm not sure if you'll see this post on such an old link, but here goes. I have the same problem with my new clutch but I just paid to have it replaced by pros. Could you please share clutch pedal specs &/or terminology so I can ask them what settings they used and compare to what should have been done. Or is it OK for the clutch pedal to go all the way to the floor to shift gears?
I just asked this same question in the new member intro area so I hope I'm not breaking rules or being a pest. Thank you Kathleen

Here ya go.
Factory pedal adjustment

Thank you Nate! I REALLY appreciate it! ~Kathleen