93 4runner manual transmission problem

I started hearing some noise in my manual transmission. I crawled under it and checked the oil in the main box and it was full. There is another plug that takes a special wrench (hex or star) to open up near where the exhaust pipe comes down but dont have that wrench. There is oil up near the front of the unit. I think it might be the front seal and bearing but have over 500,000 miles on toyota 4x4s and never had a transmission problem,, i guess except a problem on my 81 when the idiot that I had bought it from had big tires on it and it wore out the front bearing and seal.

Any ideas??

Thanks in advance.

Bill

Welcome to the AF!

What does the noise sound like? When shifting only? Running in all gears? One gear? 4WD 2WD? reverse? neutral coasting? Faster with faster road speed or faster engine speed?

Low pitched whir at high speed. I will test drive it again to see if it comes in anything other than 5th. Worse climbing hill. Seems to come and go based on load. I have wiggled the driveline which seems tight, u-joints tight, front drive line turns freely as the sound seems a little like my 85 when I forget to take the hubs out on the highway. Are there two compartments which hold oil on this transmission? Are there others that have experienced bearing failure on 93s?

Thanks,

Bill

OK. The vibration / noise starts at about 50 and I can hear/feel it in both 4th and 5th. The chassis has about 170,000 miles on it and I had the engine replaced about 10,000 miles back. I suppose it might be that they did not replace the idler bearing in the flywheel then and now it may have worn out putting stress on the front trans bearing. There seems to be oil around the clutch fork but the clutch grabs good and I would think that if that bearing was shot I would notice problems with the clutch. I am going to drive the truck up to Flagstaff tomorrow and see if it gets any worse. I have already driven it 250 miles worrying about it. I just wanted to figure out how to check the oil in the trans ,, if there was more than one reservoir on this transmission, as oil runs out of the main filler cap (hex) on the drivers side, mid point on trans. I also wanted to figure out if I was going to destroy other bearings by driving it. This problem feels like the driveline might be bent or out of balance,, sort of like when you have a bad u joint. Again everything feels tight and I don't remember any event that might have bent the driveline. Finally does anybody know how many of the toyota 5 speeds (years, Models) will interchange with this transmission.

Thanks again for your repsonse.

Bill

What about an out-of-balance wheel or driveshaft?

If it was a serious vibration, I would pull the tranny and pull the cover to see what was going on, just out of curiosity. Replace the pilot bearing. If the pilot bearing was really bad, I'd just put the tranny back in and see if the new pilot bearing solves the problem. Start inspecting the tranny if the pilot bearing looks good. Replace any seals that are suspect. Hard to believe they wouldn't replace the pilot bearing with the flywheel staring them in the face. Might be an out-of-balance or damaged driveshaft.

What model transmission is in the truck?

I don't know what model trans is in the truck. Stock 93 5 speed. How do you tell the model? The truck has been parked for a couple of months with me fretting about what to do. I saw an ad in the paper for a 90-93 4runner trans and bought that,,($150) but I didn't know anything about what to look for and when I got it home, the shifter was more like the one in my 85 than is in the 4runner. There was a 90-93 4runner there so I figured that it would fit when I picked it up. This unit has the cross member and front driveline attached. I looked for numbers but could not find out how to distinguish the different series of toyota 4x4 transmissions. I had thought about bolting the flywheel housing off the one in the truck and taking measurements to make sure everything fit and going from there but the transfer case shifter and main shifter may not line up with the holes in the 4runner floor. I just havn't got that far.

Thanks again,

Bill

When was the last time you replaced teh gear lube in the tranny and transfer case?? They both have separate chambers. You owners manual should discribe in detail.

Alot of information on this site:

http://www.marlincrawler.com/trans.html

If you can't identity your transmission by the pictures or list on that site, give a Toyota parts department your VIN and they can tell you the transmission model number.

Gear lube is a good question. I'll drain both of them and see if that makes any difference,, though I think it may be a little late for that. I suspect that the gear lube hasn't been changed since the truck left the shop on the last warranty visit and judging from some of the other issues I have dealt with on this truck the original owner may not have been diligent enough for even that visit. Not 90 w but some lower viscosity multigrade?

I am about to decide to go to the local garage and put it up on the rack and see if anything else might be out of round before I tear into it.

Thanks for the url for the website. It has pics of most of the transmissions but not for the one that is in my 4runner. Good discriptions of the model numbers though.

Thanks again,

Bill

I once had a '85 VW Vanagon with a BAD second gear grind. the owner had NEVER changed the gear lube in 150k. They tranny was going to be $2,000 to rebuild so I tried this first. I warmed up the old gear lube by driving around. made sure I could get the fill plug loose FIRST then drained the old fluid. Then I FLUSHEDit by running 1/2 qt. of FRESH Fluid through the fill hole and out the drain. Then I filled it with REDLINE FULLY SYN. GEARLUBE!! Made sure it was the right level, and took it for a spin. Not only wastehre no more second gear grind, but I got 4 MPG better!!!

Thanks, I'll try that and let you know what happens. This truck is parked and I got forty balls in the air at least five of which manage to hit me in the head every day. Anyway, it feels to me like something is out of round or wobbeling, making me think bearing failure, but as I said I have not been able to find a reservoir that is low on oil. It doesn't appear until I get the truck up over 50 and then it seems like there is a vibration that starts to kick in,, like the system can handle the problem til it gets up to that speed. I'll try this oil, if it worked on your VW maybe it'll work on my Toyota.

Thanks again,

Bill

Here's a link to some Toyota '93 manual transmissions and mainentance information:

http://personal.utulsa.edu/~nathan-buchanan/93fsm/manualtrans.html