Oz TC

Long Time Lurker (no more)

This comes out of a 1981* 2WD SR5, 2.4L 22R.

*the MFR's tag on the door post says OCT/81, but she has square headlights and a grill from '84...

Got this truck on the cheap with some horse trading, so-to-speak.

Main issue was reverse gear made a sound like an entire machine shop, and was told 5th sounded like it was about to leave the area.

So towed her home and pulled the trans.

Investigation shown her to be a W50 (or maybe W52, never could find the difference)
(1983 FSM includes a breakdown for L42 and W52) The W50 series has an iron case and Aluminum tail and bell. The W56 is all aluminum and has three center plates. (W50 has two.)

She was run dry, with evidence of the escaping 90W all out the tail end.

Ever wondered what they look like on the inside?



... and they smell ~bad~

So I mucked about for a while and could find rebuild kits, but no small parts....

Luckily, came across a W56 pulled from an '86 for a good price on local Craig'slist.

He had pulled the engine from his 2WD for a 4WD, parted out the 2WD and still had the Trans.....





Got the thing home and discovered one crucial difference. The rear mount on the W56 was about 3 inches back from the W50.

The bell housing was a direct fit, and the overall unit the same length; I can leave my driveshaft stock.

SO:

I had to figure out how to make this thing work. Not really having much on hand for fab, I elected to modify the existing bracket. Fortunately the '81 bracket was larger than the supposed '86 mount. (The cross member may be in a different place on the '86, for all I know...)

So here are the results:



Sorry, forgot to take a pic of the bracket before I cut it.

Fortunately the bracket is tapered, so I was able to nest the forward half of the bracket into the rear.

After I cleaned it up, I fit the rear half to the truck and the forward portion to the trans. I took my time with the fit, as everything was sorta loosey-goosey; the trans was on the jack, even tho bolted to the engine. At this point I also had the driveshaft installed, this gave me a good idea to keep everthing centered vertically and horizontally.

Once I got the alignment satisfactory, I centered all the parts and lightly fastened all the bolts into place. THEN I did my tack welds.



Overall I think only had to cut about 1" of material from the original bracket; the cuts lined up tangent with an existing litening hole. Also, I ~maybe~ have my trans mount on backwards from normal, but this is the only way it would clear the rear half of the bracket. This maybe explains why the rear half is level and the forward part much angled more than previously.......




One may notice the extra work on the newly bent part (top photo). I cut a couple of slots and big-hammered that middle part down to grab the back edge of the front half.
This gets a big fill weld and helps transfer the load, and provides rigidity to this mod.
The steel in this bracket was surprisingly soft.

Also added a couple of welds underneath.



Primered, painted, installed.... and.....



TA DA!

She runs great. 6 gears, and one of them goes the other way.





So It can be done.

2wdTOYota

I remember having a breakdown my w50 due to the fact that it had no 5th so freeway gas mileage sucked ended up having to buy a new one because you can't find a replacement 5th gear or countershaft anywhere. I know the struggles are real... LOL glad you found your solution

Oz TC

Yea... the way economies work, might could find most of another truck before one could find tiny, tiny parts....

Homework I did during the prep indicated that Toyota 'experimented' with a lighter tranny design for a short time.
Apparently it took only a short time for real-world users to 'field-test' the new design, and there was just not enough metal there.
Someone may need to fact-check, but it seems most of the W50's have the 5th gear issue.
If you find another W-50, I personally would count on it having the problem.
So this mod is one solution. It was pretty easy and took about a day 1/2 of fooling around to get it.
I would hope that a good fab person could help a brother out in about a 1/2 day.
Here's to hoping my success can guide another.
Namustard

Melrose 4r

That's a good fab in my book. Well done!

Dismal

very good sir!