"I got a headache THIS big, & its got W56 all over it"
 

ok, so my 88 'runner has the usual long term failure of main bearings causing whine in 3rd & 5th.

I tried replacing with Lucas' phone rep's suggestion of using heavy stabilizer 50-50 to their gear oil. absolutely no change in whine sound, and it made it shift much harder when cold, which really aggravated me I bought the expensive goo.

so, 6 mos later, the trans is still hammerin' along, but I can't hear if its getting worse because the downpipe gasket leak is getting increasingly worse. ( I need to replace entire exhaust after someone cut it into pieces but that's another story)

the rest of this story is babbling nonsense...tl,dr

best thing is if you have access to a press and a bench and the know how would be to do the rebuild yourself its incredibly simple! if not find a shop thats been around and have it rebuilt. better then buying a used one and having crap out on you Ive had this happen 2x to me so lesson learned also had my tranny rebuilt by a shop year later 3rd gear goes out and they went out of business a week before i come in for my warrenty fix :( which is when i found out how incredibly simple these trannys are to work on!

I agree with that guy ^^^

Get the rebuild kit, find a shop that will do it and make an appointment, pull the tranny, bring it to the shop and they should have it done pretty quick. Toss er back in and drive it like your supposed to. I say pull it yourself as its simple to do, it just takes time and a few beers, and saves you some coin, which you can spend on beer. And if they do the rebuild, there should be some sort of warranty if something goes wrong, but double check that first.

Find a shop if you can`t do it your self.

I had a bearing kit put in for $750.00 i let them source the bearing kit I did not need a failure blamed on a bearing kit I sourced.

I had a friend buy a Ebay bearing kit install it with his Father in law it didn`t last even 10,000 miles.

Might be worth the Marlin Crawler one if yours is good enough for a core yet.

If the budget can swing the expense .:camp:

hey thanx, that's some good input.

listening to the +'s and -'s of them helps jog the brain to decide what's best sometimes.

i would like to get the good rebuild kit and find a decent shop to do mine locally. i just have had poo luck finding good svc shops that aren't looking for $300 just to "diag" and tell you what you already knew you needed...then they do work that needs a come-back within a year. argh

the longer this thing can hold out, the longer i can save for the marlin ready to put in. and i'm only every other weekend drivin' it now since i got the little honda commuter. everyone should have one of these.

hmmm i think i'm gonna try to get the parts from marlin and find a local to install. i wonder if marlin has a shop that buys from them frequently in this area. that'd be a good start maybe.

or i could go to toyota. ew. hm i guess for now i'll keep driving it.


the funny thing about restoring old yotas that i have to keep remembering, is that they don't really stay in the condition where nothing is broken for very long. but they will run with things broken longer than it seems possible. so i'm leaving more things as-is and it seems to be a more 'yota-compatible' attitude.

For what it was worth the bearing kit was $250.00 While I am sure it would have been possible to find a cheaper one . I was happy.

The labor was $500.00

The Transmission still works good 3 or 4 years later This vehicle was used to drag another Toyota home on a Tow dolly about a 500 mile round trip.

I am lucky my commute to work is 5 miles the long way so not many miles a week.

Now it is parked I need to replace all the steel lines and the cab mounts.:camp:

i really wish i had put the mileage in this thread. But i can see from May 2012 to now, that's just shy of 3 years.

TRANS IS STILL GOING.

no louder. shifts just as good.

i assume if i didn't regear, and left the 4.1s with my 33s, i'd be using 3rd more and maybe it would have degraded further. but i still use 3rd gear plenty as the around town gear, and i use 5th gear plenty, doing 75mph on the interstates is pretty common around here. my best solution for this truck: wear headphones. to heck with the funny noises. what i feel through the wheel and the seat tells me this truck runs fine.

toyota: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. don't even lose sleep.

****
i hope everyone out there is doing well lately, i don't web surf much so i haven't been here in a while. but i love this site, love my runner, and am glad to see names i recognize are still here.

KEEP ON TRUCKIN'. PEACE OUT.