Shifting

[graphiteblimp99]

Lately I have found it to be getting harder to shift gears especially in first and second gears. I hope someone can shed some light on this problem so that I can fix it soon. Thanks everyone!

[4wdchico]

Your clutch may not be disengaging fully. The very first part of the clutch section in the factory service manual goes into adjusting the pedal height and checking the freeplay. On my car I had to go with a bit higher clutch height than spec to get the freeplay down to acceptable limits. The pedal height is adjustable and the freeplay is not so my only option was to have the pedal a bit higher.

As clutches with lever actuated mechanisms, like ours, wear they get less disengagement from a given amount of cable pull. It is just the nature of the beast.

[Highlander]

Check under the 2 boots of the lever- The lower boot should exclude water from getting into the selector shafts- Unfortunately, almost all of them break, then you get rust on the selector shafts. Pull the console, then the 4 bolts that hold the shift arm in, use something akin to 90 w gear oil (I used synthetic Mobil 1 90w and it worked great) then put the shift lever back in and run it through the gears a few times, squirt some more in and do the same, it should free up . Then reassemble. Try to do something to seal up that inner boot when you put it back together or you'll revisit this time and again.

[83Red4WD]

A few days late to the party. I had this very problem recently. I took the top off and found water and lots of rust on the shaft. I put some 5w-30 in there and ran it for a couple days while I ordered up the boot and new bushings. The boot was less than $10. Unfortunately I don't have the part # just a partial 3355-16030. Don't know what happened there. The bushing for the shifter ball is p/n 33505-16010 and is called seat, sub A. It was around $10. And then the little bushing at the end of the shifter was p/n 33548-14010 and is called shift bushing oddly enough . It was under $5,. list price for all that is probably under $35. And at over 315k miles it made a world of difference in my car. After that I sucked out the 5w-30 and replaced it with 75/90 and all is good!

Cheers........................Todd

[ARCHINSTL]

http://www.tercel4wd.com/forums/viewtop ... hilit=boot
From my above 21 December 2007 post:
33555-16030 is $7.44---boot
33548-16010 is $3.45---bushing..... This latter number differs from yours for ? reason.
33505-16010 is $9.80---seat
Total of $20.69 + postage.
Info from Butler Toy in Indy, IN, and splatterdog in MN.
Tom M.

[Petros]

If there is still trouble shifting after you check/adjust the pedal and the linkage, it could also be that the gears are just wearing out. These is one thing you can try that might help (but I have never done it): 1. Drain all the old gear oil from the transaxle and replace with cheap gear oil and auto trans fluid (half and half mixture). 2. Run that for just a day or two, make sure you run fast enough so it heats up the trans, but I would also not drive it too hard. 3. Then drain and discard the fluid mixture, replace with quality synthetic multi-vis gear oil.

The auto trans fluid has strong detergent properties and it will clean out sludge, condition the seals, loosen metal shavings, grit and dirt. This can have the effect of allowing it to shift smoother and more reliably. Otherwise you may have to replace or rebuild the trans, difficultly shifting into first and second is what my trans did the weeks right before it completely failed with about 240k miles on it.

Good luck

[4wdchico]

The clean out the trans internals thing sounds good. Has anyone here tried Auto-RX in a Tercel tranny, manual or auto, or even an engine? Sounds like an interesting product. Did a bunch of searching on the web and was unable to find much negative about it at all. Lots of folk rave about it.

Good wiki on cleaning out & lubing the shifter mech on the top of the trans as well. I'm going to get the lower boot and the other two parts and do that also.

[graphiteblimp99]

Thank you all so much for your suggestions. I will try these methods. Also, to add some detail, I noticed after going on a breif road trip that the problem get's worse the more I drive it. When I first start it up it's fine, yet the longer I use it is when the problems rears it's ugly head. Does it still sound like the problems you all have had in the past/are telling me how ot fix?

[graphiteblimp99]

Also, the water thing makes sense because about twice I have takena turn and pushed the clutch in to shift at the same time, and water came pouring out onto my right foot. I thought it had something to do with the over flow valve for the airconditioner especially since it hasn't happened since because I haven't used the AC. Are these occurances related?

[4wdchico]

http://www.tercel4wd.com/forums/viewtop ... hilit=boot
From my above 21 December 2007 post:
33555-16030 is $7.44---boot
33548-16010 is $3.45---bushing..... This latter number differs from yours for ? reason.
33505-16010 is $9.80---seat
Total of $20.69 + postage.
Info from Butler Toy in Indy, IN, and splatterdog in MN.
Tom M.

Thanks for posting those #'s. My 'yota parts connect said the boot was discontinued. Gave them your boot number and it came up as a shifter lever boot that fits '83'-'88 terc wagons. Sounds about right. On national backorder.

Already got the shifter bushing and seat no problem. Other than the EVAP carbon canister no longer being available, i have been really surprised how many parts 'yota has for out cars.