Toyota 5-speed Problem

Sixteen years and about 50,000 miles ago I purchased a conversion kit and a rebuilt Toyota five-speed transmission from Smith (Smitty) Brodie after second gear in my original three-speed box broke while I was travelling in CA following Conclave 2002 in Tahoe. Smitty gave me the use of his shop, lift, tools and lots of help and along with a couple of local Healey guys whose names have escaped me we installed the new transmission and I was able to drive back home to Maryland with no issues.

Last week I took the car for a long ride (see "Every Ride is a Test Ride" string) and on the way home I began to experience some difficulty getting the car into fourth gear, especially on upshifts, and though I was able to get into gear there was a "crunch" on engagement and often the stick would pop out of gear. During another long ride yesterday things went further south and I was totally unable to get into fourth, plus there seemed to be some resistance when upshifting into third.

I did a bit of googling and found several posts where people had similar issues and merely by changing their gearbox oil the problems went away. Hoping against hope this morning I drained the Redline MT90 which has been in the car for about a year (no metal bits, etc) and refilled with fresh. Unfortunately nothing changed and I was still unable to get into fourth, either going up or down through the gears and despite my rev-matching or double-clutching.

I've gotten a lot of good use of the gearbox and clutch and I'm certainly not complaining. Plus I am fortunate to have a local mechanic who has worked on many manual boxes of all kinds, so I'm not afraid to remove the transmission and give it to him for a rebuild. However before I simply pull the unit out I wonder if there are any detent balls/springs or the like under the top cover or whatever that might have come loose, etc. and are causing the problem. I know there are a lot of us with Smitty's conversions and if anyone has any thoughts I would appreciate input.

Hi Michael - I've had my Toyota trans apart a couple of times. If you're going to remove the trans yourself, taking out the seats and tunnel, you might as well check out the shifter area.

The detents are captured under the big hex nuts on either side below the shifter - no worry about them springing out*. You had no bits in the drained oil - good.

Refer drawings below from Smitty's manual. Notes:

--make sure shift lever is in neutral for the following -- be careful to not disturb the shift push-pull rods when you're dealing with the below. For insurance in case one of the rods gets shifted, you might want to take a picture of the arrangement of the shift rods when you take the tower off.
--IIRC you can remove the rubber boot and lift out the shift lever. The end bushing which is snapped onto the bottom ball is nylon and has been known to break. If it doesn't come out with the lever that's probably your problem. The bushing fits in the loop at the top of the "housing shift" drawiing. If it's just the ball in that loop and you don't see the plastic bushing, the shifter will be sloppy and that's your problem.
--not sure if the "seat for shifter" is plastic - look for slop here
--With the shifter in neutral, you should be able to easily remove the six bolts and take off the "shift tower"
--with the tower off the "housing shift" is exposed. There's a bolt and lockwasher (or locktab - I forget) holding it in place on its shaft. Arrow "33521" is pointing at that position. If you don't see a bolt, it fell down inside.

*Addendum: IIRC the springs under the big hex nuts on the sides are those that center the shift lever in neutral.

steveg said:

Hi Michael - I've had my Toyota trans apart a couple of times. If you're going to remove the trans yourself, taking out the seats and tunnel, you might as well check out the shifter area.

The detents are captured under the big hex nuts on either side below the shifter - no worry about them springing out. You had no bits in the drained oil - good.

Refer drawings below from Smitty's manual. Notes:

--make sure shift lever is in neutral for the following -- be careful to not disturb the shift push-pull rods when you're dealing with the below. For insurance in case one of the rods gets shifted, you might want to take a picture of the arrangement of the shift rods when you take the tower off.
--IIRC you can remove the rubber boot and lift out the shift lever. The end bushing which is snapped onto the bottom ball is nylon and has been known to break. If it doesn't come out with the lever that's probably your problem. The bushing fits in the loop at the top of the "housing shift" drawiing. If it's just the ball in that loop and you don't see the plastic bushing, the shifter will be sloppy and that's your problem.
--not sure if the "seat for shifter" is plastic - look for slop here
--With the shifter in neutral, you should be able to easily remove the six bolts and take off the "shift tower"
--with the tower off the "housing shift" is exposed. There's a bolt and lockwasher (or locktab - I forget) holding it in place on its shaft. Arrow "33521" is pointing at that position. If you don't see a bolt, it fell down inside.

View attachment 56848View attachment 56849

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When I was having a problem with my Toyota Trans staying in 5th gear I found a lot of shifting problems on a Toyota Forum that said most of the problems staying in gear could be traced to the “seat for shifter” as shown above.

Another area was the shifter rods detent springs. There are, I believe, two different springs for for all 5 of the gears. There’s no part numbers on the parts and repair specialists stock all the parts so they simply just have to match the old part with the new part.

Patrick/All--

I am hopeful if not optimistic that my problem lies in the bushing as opposed to a stuck synchro ring as some have suggested. In order to get to the bushing I need to remove the tower and I hope to remove the seats and tunnel over the weekend.

Michael , take it from a Toyota Master Tech, the first step is to pull the shifter and inspect the shifter seat and bushing on end of shifter. No need to remove the shift tower to accomplish this.

Craig--

Please tell me how I can remove the shift lever without pulling the tower as I would love to avoid having to remove the seats and tunnel if possible.

The shifter seems to be retained by a plate that is spring-loaded and rests inside the round tower projection. The opening in the plate, through which the shifter projects, is circular with two straight cords on the top and bottom, sort of like a set of parentheses that are connected at the top and bottom. Thinking that perhaps the plate would release if I pushed it down against the spring and rotated it I used a 3/4" drive 1" socket that passed over the lever but the plate did not seem to depress more than 1/16" or so and rotation does not seem to be possible.

What am I doing wrong? Is there some special tool used to remove tha plate?

Craig--

Some sites I have found online show a square plate on the top of the tower secured by four bolts. My transmission, which I believe is a W55, is not like that--the top of the tower is simply round though I did see what look like pins at the 3 and 9 o'clock positions.

I found these instructions on a crawler site: "If other than a W56 you push down on the little cup at the base of the shifter and turn it. This disengages the pins in the side of the shifter base from the slots in the cup"

Is that what I should be doing and if so does it matter which way I turn the cup? How aggressive do I need to be in order to get the cup to turn?

Video shows all:

Michael, that is exactly what you need to do. The cup is spring loaded upwards. There are two pins on the housing that engage slots in the cup. It's kind of the reverse of an 1157 taillight bulb. You need to push down about 1/8" and then rotate counter-clockwise(I'm going off distant memory as we see very few of these any more). When it stops rotating, let it come up , then lift the shifter out. Look into the opening in the tower and you will see the rubber/plastic seat at the bottom.

The seats are color coded. They are not listed separately in the parts guides. A good parts tech will know the part numbers.

Here's a pic of the cup and it's slots.Click for larger image.

Craig/Steve--

Thanks so much for the video and advice. I guess I was not being forceful enough when trying to depress the plate and knowing which way it turns helps alot! I may not be able to get to this till Saturday but will post results.

Michael Oritt said:

Craig/Steve--

Thanks so much for the video and advice. I guess I was not being forceful enough when trying to depress the plate and knowing which way it turns helps alot! I may not be able to get to this till Saturday but will post results.

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The “seat” is carried in some parts stores. The first time I tried to buy it at a dealer I was told I had to buy the whole assembly at about $175.00. If you know the part number the Dealer can look it up and get just that part only.

Another great post from Steve G. I drove my Toyota gear-box-equipped '60 BN7 back from southern Virginia five years ago, a torturous trip because the large nylon shifter tower bushing plus the smaller one on the end of the shift lever were both missing. Finding a gear was a matter of luck. I had the frequent experience of accelerating out on to an interstate and catching third gear when I was trying to get fifth. After I got home, I paid a restoration guy $160 to fix the gear box. He did put the nylon "shoe" on the lower ball on the shift lever, but apparently was unaware of the larger nylon bushing you saw the Toyota truck owner install in Steve's video. Still couldn't reliably shift gears. I finally figured out the solution joining the Toyota truck owners Web site and stumbling on a related site for rock-climbing vehicles. These commonly use Toyota gear boxes. The people who make components for the Toyota boxes offer a variety of bushings that mount in the gear box tower as shown in the truck-owner's post. I "unlatched" the top of the shift tower on my gear box as the video showed and discovered there wasn't a trace of the larger bushing. A trip to the Toyota dealer's parts department found an mechanic who was aware of the tendency for these bushings to perish, and I bought one for about $12. Problem solved. I think we might term the locking system for the top of the tower, push down and twist, a variation of a breech locking system used in firearms sometimes called a cannon breech. Also similar to the common bolt action. Anyone experiencing trouble selecting gears on a Smitty conversion would be well advised to pop open the shifter tower and check for the presence and condition of those bushings.

RDKeysor said:

Another great post from Steve G.

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Please don't neglect to record a "thanks" for posters for something helpful, especially when it's obvious that they went to some trouble to make a drawing, post a screen cap, etc.

There's a "Thanks" button at the bottom of each post. Clicking it takes only a moment.

I got over to the shop this morning and removed the retaining cup as the video Steve posted shows. I also found the same thing--the remains of the black rubber gasket. Unfortunately none of the Toyota dealers or parts stores in my area carries the gasket and it looks like I will have to wait until Monday to get a replacement. Stay tuned....

Further to this conversation, I dug out the invoice from Keith Pierson Toyota, Orange Park, FL, where I paid $13.66 for what the invoice says was part 33505-35020 further described as seat sub-assy, priced at $12.76 (the balance of the cost being state tax). This is, I think we can assume, the part that Michael is seeking and the one I mentioned in my earlier post. I remember that the man at the parts counter seemed unfamiliar with this part--and I had part of the shift mechanism with me at the counter--and had to ask a mechanic about it. As I said earlier, Web sites that cater to rock climbing vehicles demonstrate the vulnerability of this part of the shift mechanism by extolling how superior their aftermarket products are to the factory item. The reason I blab on about this topic is that I contemplated replacing the Toyota gear box in my newly purchased 3000 back in 2013 because of the shifting problem that I thought had major implications. Having located the invoice that a local car restoration shop handed me earlier after NOT fixing my transmission, I find that he charged me $5.46 for that little plastic-looking (nylon?) sleeve that goes on the very bottom of the shift lever. I paid $166.34 for this work which did nothing to solve my shifting problem. Had the discussion we are having now been available on the forum when I went through all of this travail, it would have been God-send to me. This is more evidence of the value of the Forum and the contributions participants make in addressing the issues we encounter with our old but beloved cars.

Yes, that is the part I am waiting for and though the nylon bushing on the end of the shifter looks okay I am changing it as well as I am getting the black rubber spacer from NAPA who package the two together for $21.00+. I'm just hopeful--and moving to optimistic--that this will be the solution to my issue. I'll know more Monday.

Michael, did you take a pic of the shifter seat?

Craig--

Thus far all I have done is removed the shifter and picked out the remains of the black rubber bushing. I have not disturbed the orientation of any other parts.

I see in your earlier post you refer to the "whifter seat" as being color-coded. Please forgive my ignorance but what is the "shifter seat"? If it is the part into which the nylon bushing goes/engages I did not notice any color nor do I have any pictures.

The "shifter seat" is the item shown in steveg's illustration as "seat for shifter". It resides in the bottom of the shift tower opening. The large ball of the shifter pivots in this rubber/plastic seat. You referred to it as a "black rubber bushing"

They usually look about like this one I replaced last summer:



Click for larger image

Screengrabs of the Toyota parts from above video: