Gentlemen, for those of you who are running ACT clutches and keep wondering why your shifts are hard/grind...the culprit could very well be your TOB. I myself run the ACT 2200 but shifts are not smooth by any means. And my tranny is pretty much brand new....

I did a little research and it seems the ACT TOB's have a pretty good failure rate on the 4Gxx architecture transmissions. This goes back to the 1G DSMs. BAD TOBs quickly leads damaged gears and bearings on your gear shafts, and even the slave cylinder failure.

That's why you see many clutches do not come with TOBs, they recommend to buyers to use the OEM TOB.

I am going to replace my clutch with the Exedy OEM kit and purchase a new clutch fork (who knows how bad that's been beat up by now).

Just a little info.

 

Have not had this problem, but then again my clutch has like 150 miles on it and has been in the tranny for about 7 months now.

 

I have had all kinds of clutch problems.
The ACT i have in it now came with a TOB. It seems to be running fine so far.

 

Nice to know as I was planning on going with an ACT clutch..back to researching..urghh

 

i have an act clutch in mine i used the oem one the dealership told me 2 because act ones have a prob

 

i just put in an act an i have no problems shifts awsome

 

I really am not sure why the ACT TOBs suck but the OEM ones are the way to go. I just read up on something called a heavy duty TOB.....interesting.

 

Is exedy the only OEM manufacturer of our clutches?

 

After hearing all of this about the ACT TOB you guys got me worried lol.
I have literally replaced every component in the clutch system.

 

I recently replaced my OEM with an ACT and after 500 miles, my throw out bearing was chirping. ACT claims it must be coming from my gears because they tested it and it looks fine. The chirping happens when the car isn't moving, I don't think it's the gears. By the way, I bought another OEM clutch and everything is fine now, although I just wasted $800. Be careful with ACT.

 

I really am not sure why it happens but look it up guys, this issue goes all the way back to the 1G DSMs. I'm sure the pressure plate and disk are of supreme quality, but that mother effin TOB. You may be better off just buying an OEM TOB with your new clutch.

 

To be honest when i originally put in my stage 3 ACT i used the OEM TOB. It had made a bunch of noise when the clutch pedal was not pressed. I also think that the pressure plate was the culprit of my clutch system failure. Now i have a stage 1 ACT with their TOB and it still makes noise. I can deal with the noise i just dont want the clutch failure.

 

When you say noise how loud is it?? Does it sound terrible ? Like something is wrong ?

 

This go around its kinda loud. Sounds kinda like something is knocking but when you push in the clutch it goes away. I had the same sound with the oem one when i had the stage 3 in an when i broke it all apart it just looked like it was wearing out. Didnt spin as freely as it should.

 

Knocking with rotating parts is never a good thing!