1995 Toyota 4runner It's a mechanical speedometer cable, and an automatic, 3.0 V6, 2-wheel drive....My wife was posting earlier, so she might have left some information out. I somehow broke my speedometer cable on my 95 4runner...the dealer didn't have a cable in stock, so I told him that I'll get it later....The next day I went on a 400 mi trip...200 miles done the road the check engine light came on an I'm blowing white smoke and transmission fluid on the freeway..I got towed to another dealer and he said that I burned up my transmission.....2 days later he replaced the tranny late on a Saturday and I jumped on freeway to finish my trip, a 200 mile drive. The check engine light came on again. I thought that the guys just didn't fix what they were suppose to fix....making a very long story short, I burned up a second transmission in less than three days........The dealers didn't have a clue to my surprise......I consulted the transmission person who told me that on the 95 4runner with the mechanical speedometer cable, the cable has to be installed because If it isn't installed the speed sensor won't get the information needs to send a signal to the transmission to go into or take away lockup. I think that lockup has something to do with tranmission cooling.......As it turned out I got the original toyota rebuilt transmission put back in the truck........The dealers didn't seem to know anything about lockup or it's relationship with the speedometer cable. I dealt with the transmission guy after that. My question to you all is do I have my information straight? Have any of you heard of this.

 

well it makes sense that if the trans ecu isnt getting a signal that the vehicle is moving. It may not operate the solinoids or other functions needed to shift or lock up. But i'm not a auto trans pro, so take what i say with a grain a salt. I was sure they fazed out the mechanical speedo's in 90. my 92 has an electronic speedo.

 

Yup, the tranny needs input from the speedo to work (ie shift, lockup, etc) correctly.
As you found out, driving at highway speeds without the TC locked up will fry the tranny in a heart beat.
You MUST fix the speedo.

vital22re, the '95's have a mechanical speedo cable.




Fred

 

they did... but IIRC, in the end of 92 0r 93 they brought back the mechanical speedo...

 

Both of my '91's had/have mechanical speedo cables

 

The PCM "can" also get it's speed sensor info from the ABS. But more than likely it doesn't. If the tranny wasn't getting the info it needed, you would have known it. It wouldn't have left 1st gear and you wouldn't have been going freeway speeds!

Also, there is not Requirement for the lock up to work, but having the torque converter locked up helps keep the tranny cooler. And if it does start to get hot, it is supposed to lock up the t/c until the temp comes back down.

I'm also not a automatic specialist, but I just studied them last spring.

Good Luck with it!!

 

It's kinda scary that the dealer had no clue about this...

 

Guys, I have a big problem here.....I called Toyota Corp an they said that the speedometer has nothing to do with the transmission overheating....something is wrong here.....the only people that say that the speedometer has to be installed are people on this forum an a couple guys that know transmissions. The people that I talked to at Toyota aren't technicians...they're buffers between the technicians and the public......the dealers don't know anything about transmissions......where do I go from here....the expert doesn't want to get involved because he makes a lot of money off of the Toyota Dealerships.

 

Call your local Automatic Transmission company! Or AAMCO. . . Ask to talk to a technician and ask them.

 

Humm...Didn't think about AAMCO

 

i have had alot of trouble getting any info at all about my truck from the local dealership, but I found a dealership an hour out of town that was ALOT more helpful. If you spoke with Toyota Corp, though, I dunno....if anyone has the right info, i would think they would. You might wanna get a few different opinions from different tranny shops. Make sure they are familiar with your tranny model, etc.

have you checked the factory manuals to see if it mentions anything?

 

I had a 5 minute argument with a tech from the dealership in wilmington because he insisted that my 1992 sr5 was a tacoma........i will never go back to that dealership

 

This blows me away...I talked to An AAmco out of Atlanta and they said that the speedometer cable has nothing to do with the tranny overheating...By the way Toyota Corp "represenative" told me that maybe I should take this dealership to small claims court........that's funny, because all I wanted from him is definitive answer one way or another..

 

Did they rebuild your tranny or replace it the first time? What'd they do the second time?

 

The first time they put in a remanufactured transmission (that was not a toyota transmission)...by time the second trany was burned up the first transmission had been rebuilt so the original transmission is in the truck right now........The first trany actually overheated and I dumped all the trany fluid on the freeway.....the second sustained a lot of damage before I got the new speedometer cable installed......When I got back to Savannah I took the truck to a transmission shop that was recommeded by the supplier of the rebuilt tranny (he is the guy that knows what's going on but he gets a lot of bussiness from Toyota and does't want to cut his own throat)....this guy took it apart and said that it looked pretty bad inside so he put the original toyota tranny back in the truck....