Tranmission Locked in 5th gear.

chilibilly · Post by **chilibilly** » Sun May 22, 2005 11:36 pm

Driving home from work I was slowing down to go on the off ramp of the freeway near my home when I was rear ended by a Saturn. The Saturn had only a scratched bumper, my bumper in the rear was bent down pretty badly with very minor body damage. However, my car had stalled. When I tried to restart it, I could not shift to neutral. Had to put the clutch in to start. Seems to be locked in 4th or 5th gear. I could not remember if had downshifted from 5th. I tried everything to try and get the car out of 5th gear to no avail. Mechanic at toyota dealer said the shifting fork may have slipped out of place, or worse broke inside the tranny.
Looks like I need to remove tranny to find out. I have another tercel wagon parts car with a good six speed tranny, the same as the one that got in the accident. How hard would it be to make a swap from one car to the other? What problems might I run into? I guess I should swap out with new clutch, pressure plate and throw out bearing while I am at it. OR, Would it be easier to fix the existing tranny's problem. I would not know where to start and I have seen no manuals with instructions on how to rebuild a tranny. What should I do?

takza · Post by **takza** » Mon May 23, 2005 5:53 am

Somebody else mentioned a car with the same problem. Probably easiest to just switch the trans?

I'd guess the engine/trans moved back enough to put serious pressure on the shifter lever?

Have you taken the console and shift lever off to see how things look? Might try a little oil and hope a lot....

chilibilly · Post by **chilibilly** » Mon May 30, 2005 1:01 am

If I switch the transmissison, is it easier to pull the engine and tranny as a unit or to just take the transmission out by itself? The other Terk I would be pulling the tranny out of only has 98k on engine, the turk with the locked up tranny has about 122k on it. However, the clutch on the 98k turk needs replacing, according to the auto adjust mechanism on it. The autoadjust is almost to the end of its travel. The clutch on the 122k terk is good, near the beginning of travel on clutch autoadjust.

Seems like changing the engine and tranny together would be the way to go. While the engine and tranny are out of the car, I could easily put in a new clutch if needed on the 98k turk. I have never taken a tranny or engine out of a turk. For those of you that have, what would be the best course to take?

I have replaced and rebuilt engines on many other types of cars and trucks including Corrollas, Coronas, TR6, Ford Trucks, Jeeps, VW bus & bugs, Civics, Opel Cadet, Volvo, Chevy Truck, Datsun 510, and other cars I can't remember the names of. so I feel confident I could do this.

If you all think this is too much hassel, maybe I should just sell both as is and buy another car. I don't know what to do. I just don't know if I'm up to the task if its going to be too much hassel, or unexpected problems or difficulties arrise. I would be doing all the work by myself.

By the way, I did pull the cover off the shift counsel. Still no movement out of gear. There are six bolts around the shift lever plate, but it doesn't look like I can get to all of them without droping the tranny. Not enough room between the body and the tranny to get a wrench on. And I don't have a tranny manual that shows me if that particular plate would allow access to the part that is jammed. So it may be a waste of time trying to pull it off.

ChiliBilly

3A-C Power · Post by **3A-C Power** » Mon May 30, 2005 8:55 am

Look at the service manual that on this site. It take a while to understand the tranny section, but it's worth it when you get it figured out. I would change the tranny and then if you're so inclined, work on the wrecked one at a leisurely pace when the car is working again.

chilibilly · Post by **chilibilly** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 11:07 pm

3-ac,
I think I'll follow your advise. I first pull the tranny out of the 98k Terk, then pull the one out of my damaged Turk. I'll also change all the clutch parts, as I don't want to do this again for a while. I found a pdf file on this site with the full 85 Official Toyota Repair manual. Is it correct to assume that the 85 tranny is about the same as mine? From all the pics, it looks like an exact match. I could not find an 83 manual with a tranny breakdown and r&r. I'm driving the 4 door hatchback for now. It gets stightly better milage than the 4x4 and has a lot more power. I think it is mostly because of the weight difference. Has the same 3ac engine.
Chili

3A-C Power · Post by **3A-C Power** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 11:33 am

The 83 is actually different in significant ways. the main shafts and gears are the same, but the shift forks and linkage are different. It would be better to find an 83 or 84 manual, they show up on ebay often.

tercel4wdrules · Post by **tercel4wdrules** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 2:12 pm

I have the 84 manual. Do you want me to scan the Z52F manual transmission section for you, chilibilly?

arbskynxnex · Post by **arbskynxnex** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 2:32 pm

Before you go to all the trouble of pulling the tranny try this. It was recommended to me by a trans shop when my rebuilt one was stuck in 5th. This is on a z54f tranny, I don't know if its the same on the z52. On the passenger side of the trans there are three (3) allen head bolts lined up vertically. Remove the bottom one, watch out there is a spring and ball in there, set those aside. Once you have those out you should be able to stick a screwdriver in there and pop the shift arm forward, out of 5th and into neutral.
If that didn't work, like in my case, we had to drop the tranny and bellhousing, press them apart, shift the trans to neutral and put them back together. When you have them seperated, you can see the shift arm sticking out the front, shift the tranny a few times to make sure it works, and when you put the bellhousing back on that the shift arm doesn't get pushed back. If you cannot get the bellhousing back on without the shift arm moving, again like me, the arm is probably bent, and won't slide into the bellhousing without hitting. If everything is good on that end it will slide right back together. Make sure you run the shift pattern several times before sticking the trans back in. Its better to find out before you spend 3 hours swearing at it to go back in then afterwords. (personal observation)

chilibilly · Post by **chilibilly** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 1:25 pm

Tercel4wdrules,

Someone said that the Z54, 84 & 85 tranny are the same. I have the Chilton Manual on the 84-94 Tercel, but it does not cover the breakdown and R&R on the Z series transaxel. It only explains how to get it in and out of the car and doesn't cover the 83 at all. However, a lot of the 84 info applys to the 83 Terk. I downloaded the PDF file on the 85 tranny, which should be the same as the 84 tranny. What I need is 83 manual on the Z52 tranny. Thanks anyways for the offer.

Chilibilly

chilibilly · Post by **chilibilly** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 1:30 pm

Arb,
Interesting idea. I think I'll try it before I go to all the trouble of removing the trannys. It would be great if it worked.
Thanks,
Chilibilly.

tercel4wdrules · Post by **tercel4wdrules** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 2:06 am

chilibilly wrote: Tercel4wdrules,

Someone said that the Z54, 84 & 85 tranny are the same. I have the Chilton Manual on the 84-94 Tercel, but it does not cover the breakdown and R&R on the Z series transaxel. It only explains how to get it in and out of the car and doesn't cover the 83 at all. However, a lot of the 84 info applys to the 83 Terk. I downloaded the PDF file on the 85 tranny, which should be the same as the 84 tranny. What I need is 83 manual on the Z52 tranny. Thanks anyways for the offer.

Chilibilly

Chilibilly,

The 83 and 84 Tercels have the Z52F unless the 84 was made after 8/84 then it's an 85 and has the Z54F. I have the 80-84 Bentley manual I can also scan that has the procedures on how to rebuild the 4wd trans. I checked my 84 FSM and it has the R&R procedures for the Z52F. I also have access to the 83 FSM at my local library as well so please let me know if you're still interested in the trans portions of both manuals (84 FSM and Bentley).

3A-C Power · Post by **3A-C Power** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:32 am

I'm interested in the Z52F info. I have one of each tranny and only realized how different they are when I took them apart. An easy way to tell which one you have is whether or not your car has an extra low indicator on the dash. As far as I know it changed with the 85 model year but for sure if you have an extra low indicator that works, it's a Z54F.

tercel4wdrules · Post by **tercel4wdrules** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 11:35 am

3A-C Power,

Are you interested in both procedures? One thing both of those manuals lack is the teardown procedure for the A55F for the 84 4WD. In fact I found out that it is included in a separate supplementary manual just for the auto and the Bentley completely lacks it. As for the info from the manuals, I'll be able to get to it in 3 wks as I am tied up in school work.

chilibilly · Post by **chilibilly** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 10:40 pm

The z52 info is what I need, as both my Terks are 83s.

By the way I tried to find the three allen head bolts mentioned on the passenger side. they do not exist on my tranny. I think I will still have to pull the trannys and swap.

Chilibilly