Hey all, semi new to this forum....use it for reference a good bit anyway. I've got an 87 4-runner. Bought it about three months ago. When I bought it, it was popping out of first and third gear. replaced the shift lever bushing and at least thrid worked for a while. When it went bad I was broke and had a local shop install a used transmission that I paid way too much for...600!!...for just the tranny. But I had no choice at the time and no lift of my own to do it myself. Plus, these w56s are hard to find!

Anyway, this tranny whines quite a bit in 1st 2nd and 3rd gear...its not much like a bearing, and it pulses louder as I wind out the gears....no sound when not on the gas...sounds like that wierd praying mantis thing in one of the new star wars movies...best I can come up with.

The shop admits there is a sound and they are willing to find and replace the tranny, but they don't think this sound means the tranny will fail any time soon and encouraged me to keep it in. Are they just trying to get out of the replacement? Any ideas what it would cost to rebulid my old tranny on the side? I figure if that would be less than $600 then maybe they could just cover the cost of that.

thanks....sorry for the long email

Neil

 

did they replace the throw out bearing?

 

not that I'm aware of...good question though....I'm pretty sure they didn't do anything more than they had to. After thinking about this all day I think I'm going to try to pay the difference for a rebuilt if they'll let me....this is too much of a headache....all the other expensive things I wanted to buy for this rig, like suspension, exhaust, soft top..., will have to wait I guess.

 

do you know what weight oil in the the trans and if it's full or not?
top it off or maybe drain and refill it with fresh gear oil before you drop down more on another trans.

I don't think they're trying to get out of it since they are offering to work with you on another one but in the mean time, maybe just a good fluid change will quiet it down. also, if it's not popping out of gear and is changing gears smoothly without grinding, the synchros and gears aren't badly worn.

fwiw, my 'runner has some gear whine and I've put 25,000 on it, and it has 238,000 total miles on the original trans (according to the person I bought it from the trans hasn't been out).

 

Mine has noise in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, quiet in 4th, worst in 5th. I am sure it is due to bearing wear, common in the W56.