Transmision

[JashAttack]

I have had my tercel for over a year now and the transmision has whined ever since. Is this normal or the sound of the tranny going out? if so where would I get a new one or should I just have the old rebuilt?

[splatterdog]

A whine is better than a bearing growl. Whine is gear noise. Unless it's louder than your radio it's not too bad. I've had trannies and diffs on various cars make noise but took a good beating for years till the very end nevertheless. My driving "parts" car does it too. Feed it some good synthetic gear oil and don't ever dump the clutch and it will probably be fine for a long time.

A rebuild of yours likely won't fix it. That's bearings,seals and synchros. Other hard parts such as shafts and gears are prohibitively expensive being only available from Toyota, if at all.

[Typrus]

Make sure your gear oil is topped up. Download the Service Manual from the homepage (tercel4wd.com) and see how. There is actually a trick to it.

A quart of Lucas gear oil (heavier than 80-90) made mine quite a bit quieter. I just want that Schaeffer's in there ASAP....

[takza]

IF IN DOUBT....CHANGE IT OUT!

Relatively easy to just drain the oil in there and put in new....IF you use the oil changing device I now have a patent on.

Everyone complains about these noisy transmissions. If all it does is make some gear noise...just put in new oil? Check for leaks though...any hanging drip could be trouble...cause you don't know how fast it is dripping...unless you lay under the car and count the drips.

I now let the old oil settle for 1/2 hour...then set the pan in the sun and run a finger thru it...if you see what looks like metallic paint....I'd say a bearing is going out. Not sure how many miles a trans like this is going to last. As mentioned above...when the bearings get real bad you'll know it...a good test is to drive the car past a solid wall with the window open...that'll give to something to worry about. I think it's the next gear down from the input shaft that goes first? When my last trans went out...it was grinding and noisy in all gears espec 1st thru 3rd.

If you buy a used trans...how can you know it's condition?

There are some writeups on this stuff.

[shogun]

i have a noisy transmission too, but mine is because it takes severous beatings, i have to change the oil about every 4 months when racing

[Typrus]

(whispering..) Schaeffer's.............. Schaeffer's.......
Heh. I still need to try it out.

Yeah. You DO NOT want that gear to have a shot bearing. Ya'll seen the pics of the cooked input shaft from Red? Yeah.....