Sweet! The motorcycle is my daily driver so that gives me hope that it might could last a while. My only real concern is we are planning a road trip from south eastern VA up to NYC to see my brother in law over Christmas, worried that trip could be too much.
As I recall driving through upstate NY there's lots of hills, combine that with the fact that it was snowing when I was there in early May and you plan on being there in December, I would DEFFINATELY get that clutch done before the trip. You never know when you're going to need to power out of a bad situation, plus the hills will make you slip regardless, especially in 4x4 due to the added resistance, if you're already slipping as bad as you said you were. Lastly I had a clutch in an MR2 that grenaded, only thing left on the input shaft was the spline ring, and it had only just started slipping. That was put in by the PO 80k prior according to him and was probably a cheepo ebay clutch. YMMV
Is one expected to last much longer than the other or what makes the Marlin Crawler better/more expensive?
I'm running the 1200lb Marling Crawler clutch with the Marlin ball seats and I'm loveing it. Will it last longer? Well all the Marlin parts and pieces (with the exception of their flywheel) are made by the OEM parts suppliers for Toyota with a few better parts incerted where improvements can be made (their page on the clutch goes into detail about why they chose what) so it will last at least as long as OEM guaranteed. That said clutch longevity really depends on how well you can drive with one. My aunt goes through a clutch something like every two years and 20k miles. Is it made of better materials and parts than most? I think so. Several people have used centerforce clutches but those were even pricier when I was shopping around.
Starter contacts?
The clutch slave is something that can be done at another time without having to drop the trans, right?
Starter contacts are little pieces of copper inside the back of the starter that provide power to your starter motor, something rotates on them and wears them out after a while. If you have an original denso starter "go bad" chances are the motor is fine you've just worn down those two little $3 dollar pieces not the $300 starter itself. Our starters are a ***** and a half to get out when everything's together but you have to pull the starter when you pull the transmission and with the trany gone it's really convenient to go ahead and knock them out.
Yes the clutch slave is externally mounted by two 10mm bolts and is very simple to do whenever you feel like it.
I didn't even know they made these, I just assumed people used their regular car jacks to do it.
You poor unfortunate soul! I just did my clutch and it would have been impossible (might be over dramatized a bit) with a floor jack.
Yes they make dedicated tranny jacks several equipment rental places around you should have one you can borrow for a small fee. Mine cost me $40. Just keep in mind that your transfercase weighs damn near as much as everything else. The pivot point on my tranny was about where the crossmember goes. You will need to remove the platic ball nut that lives there to get the jack to set flat on the tranny.
All said and done, approximately how much did you spend doing all that? Including tools too? If I can make it hold out until tax return time I'm thinking id be a lot better off...
Eh... I did all the work myself and had my Toyota employee discount so rounding up for you a bit I'd say $700
