Only gear that sounds smooth is 4th gear. Should pay someone to rebuild mine or buy a new one? I just use mine for daily driving. Who sells a good daily driver 22R transmission? What should I expect to pay?

 

any w56 trans would be a good bet for just daily driving, and they're one of the tougher yota tran's. Fairly common junkyard find as well. just my $.02

 

Thank you! Marlin Crawler?

 

I went through Marlin for my tranny rebuild. The w56 is a great tranny. The r151 is the strongest from the turbo trucks but harder to find and more costly has a lower 1st gear. The r151 bellhousing would even let you run the v6 r150 tranny.

 

L50 or L52 is a direct fit for 5 speeds, anything other than that and you'll have to modify subframe and driveshafts. Keep or sell your old transmission they are becoming rare

 

This-
Any later model 4 cyLinder transmission will be about 4" longer than an L series transmission requiring you to move the cross member back, shortening rear d/s and lengthening your front d/s.

 

Or look for shafts from donor vehicle. Front will be the hardest as you'll want the 84-85 front shaft. They have more operating angle than the IFS front shaft. But you stand to have problems with drive shaft patterns and bolt size. Triple flanges would solve that though. But could be problem with crush type pinion spacer if stock difs.

You'd need to research.

Prolly be cheapest to rebuild.

Call marlin see what they have to say about options. They've been doing this for quite a while.

 

I purchased a rebuilt L52 for my 83 last spring from Marlin Crawler...after removing the old one and installing the new one imagine how pissed I was to find the new tranny leaking like a sieve....I immediately tried to call Marlin to complain and all I got was a recording saying "call volume was high and to try back another time".....I tried for days and that's all I got...I was so ripped with them....there was no way to even leave a message!.. ...I ended up pulling the new tranny and fixing the leaky seal myself....they had overlooked the output shaft gasket during the rebuild!.....so that was my experience with Marlin Crawlers.....would think twice about dealing with them and their lack of customer service after spending close to a $$Grand with them.....

 

Marlin puts out a LOT of transmissions and the majority of them, I believe, are great. But they are expensive, and take time. And they aren't quick to admit to making a mistake. And, unless you live near them in California, you're dealing with shipping a transmission back & forth across the country if something goes wrong.

I had an L52HD from them, which, two years after I bought it, starting popping out of gear and making noise. A retaining clip fell out. Which seems to me to be their fault, but it was past warranty. So I had to pay to ship it back & forth to them, plus the work they did to open up the tranny and fix their mistake.

At the time this happened to me, there were at least 4 other people on the marlin crawler forum complaining of serious issues with their rebuilt transmissions. One guy, who was luckily in California, went through 4 or 5 transmissions before getting one that worked.

I think they figured out what was happening at that point (though they never let anyone on the forum know what the issue had been, even after we asked them directly a few times), and there weren't those kind of issues after that.

But...because of that, and some of the general attitude of "we're the best, and if you question us, you must be a troll", I don't shop there or visit the forum anymore.

But there's no doubt they know their Toyota transmissions. If I lived within driving distance of them in Cali I'd consider a rebuild from them, after comparing with other local shops. But not otherwise.

 

Well that's interesting....thought I was alone....I wasn't about to send it back and forth across the Country for something I could fix myself especially after waiting 3 months for the tranny to begin with...but the last thing I expected was to do the install twice...what really pissed me off was that I never heard from them at all....repeated emails and calls, no response.....not exactly good customer service....I would not use them again.

 

Yeah, the excuse back a couple years ago was that they had grown too fast to keep up the kind of service they are known for (i.e. "good" service), and that the vast majority of their transmissions go out to racing/professional applications and are generally flawless, and to have a few duds here and there that get a lot of publicity on a public forum doesn't mean there's a true issue.

Which makes some sense, but excuses, rather than apologies and just making it right, don't help my loyalty at all.

 

All I can say is wow!!!! I had a good experience with them but that was years ago. I guess things change with time as do businesses. To bad "Big Mike" doesn't spent time on YT. As I've seen him personally address things on other forums. Would be curious to see what he has to say.

 

He comes over here now and then. Not sure if he just looks through every now and then, or if he has some alarm that notifies him if there's Marlin talk, or if someone from here lets him know if there's a thread he should look at it, but he shows up here and there.

Honestly, in the scheme of things, it seems they do very good business, and very good work. I happened to have a bad experience around the same time as a few other people were having bad experiences, and I wasn't all that happy with how it was all resolved. But that's just a fact of business and hard to avoid.

I don't typically jump into Marlin threads or threads that recommend Marlin trannys and tell people to avoid them, but since another experience was brought up in this thread...

The take-home message for me is: no, they are not transmission gods. They probably know Toyota transmissions better than anyone else out there. But the quality control sometimes slips, and the customer service leaves something to be desired. If you're thinking of spending almost a thousand dollars (or more if you go for the HD like I did), think very carefully before you mail-order a transmission from a thousand miles away.

If something goes wrong with it...you are pulling the transmission, packing it up, shipping it out, waiting with no vehicle (my truck was my DD and only vehicle), then re installing it and hoping it works this time. That's a LOT of work, and waiting.

If you live near them, I would definitely recommend them, but not exclusively. I would still shop around.

 

I understand what your saying but really appreciate sharing.

When I got the tranny from them I also ordered a tcase with 4:70's a couple 5 months after installing. I drove cross country from NC to WA. I noticed a leak at rear tcase seal. Wasn't bad but like you said when a person drops serious coin on parts well you expect a well no leaks. This was while driving across SD. I was able to talk to customer service. Of course packing tcase up to ship back to them was not an option. In hind site I could have driving it. But decided to change seal out. Customer service explained procedure and I had FSM. About a total 2 hour job with finding seal and the larger socket.

Was a good character building experience. And introduced me to Mainard's where you can buy the supplies to build your deck; the grill and furniture for your deck; then the food to cook out on your new deck all in one stop.

 

I have decided to have a local transmission shop do the rebuild. Shop is close to me and all they do is transmissions. Cant wait to get back start driving it again.