Percy - 2003 GX Love

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

The clutch slave cylinder is a push rod so I unbolted the bracket holding the clutch line to allow free play and then unbolted the slave cylinder. Just tucked it up out of the way and removed the rubber boot. I put all the bits in containers to keep them together.



Disconnected the negative bettery terminal so that I could remove the starter motor.



Starter has a lot of oil on the electrical connectors, I'll need to sort that out before it all goes back together.



Removed the angled, slider bars that go from the chassis rails to the gearbox mounting bracket.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Next item to remove is the drive shafts, I decided to remove the front and back drive shafts along with all the universal joints. The book just says remove the drive shaft and I'm finding it pretty useless as a guide for this work.



Here you can see what I mean by removing all the universal joints. You could probably leave them on but I think they'll make the gearbox heavier and more awkward to deal with.



Getting these damn bolts off is taking a fair bit of leverage, if I didn't have my $15 Costco trolley and eye protection this job would really suck.



I managed to get the forward section of exhaust removed up to the turbo (needed a long socket and the rattle gun to avoid stripping one nut). I don't know that this is essential but I think it will make it easier to get to some of the bell housing bolts. I really hope there are no bolts on the top of the bell housing, I don't know how I'd get to them if there are.

It's been a slow day, I'm figuring this out as I go so am taking my time. In the morning I'll remove the gear levers and a mate will come over to help detach the gearbox if we can get it unbolted. I watched a few youtube videos of people doing clutch changes in cars and small utes and they struggle with the gearbox - the Prado's gearbox is massive by comparison. I think it's going to be a hell of a wrestle.

Time for a bit of cricket while I think about the next steps.

[samo Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close samo]

To help you get the gear box out have you gotta trolley jack you can use to take the weight of the gearbox with when you undo the bell housing bolts.cheers samo

[wastegate Member Find all posts View Profile Close wastegate]

A diff specialist told me once that to free the uni joint bolts you need to shock them, not with a "boo" but with decent spanner and a mallet. Apparently it cracks the bonding (not loctite but something similar) applied to hold the nut tight. The bolt stays put as it is splined into the other face.

Handy info to have known a month earlier removing the bastard nuts beside the old tele track.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Hi Samo, yeah I've got a big trolley jack to take the weight. I might throw some timber under there to help spread the support. I'd love to get a transmission jack but it's a bit hard to justify having something like that floating around the shed when rarely used. I borrowed the ramps and clutch alignment tool for the same reason.

Tony, yeah I'd hate to have to get them off beside the road. I used my trolley and a foot wedged against the side steps to get some leverage. I thought that having someone put the brakes on might make them a bit easier but it didn't. I used a long breaker bar and socket and plenty of leverage.

[D4Dforme Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close D4Dforme]

Jeez mate ya don't mind having a go.....good on you..........I have lost patience doing mechanical work myself.........having changed gearbox's,engines and diffs before nowadays i don't even like to change the oil myself........LOL........getting lazy i suppose.....

Just a thought,,,,while your there have you considered changing the uni's aswell?.......Also the rear seal in the box behind the tailshaft yoke is an easy change once you get the yoke nut off that is........the seal is only worth bloody $20 .........i've had 2 go in my old landcruisers (100 and an 80).....it may have been bad luck but both times they were a pain in the bum to do......and with unis......well for the price i'd change em myself while they are out.

Dan

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Hi Dan, thanks for the feedback. I have picked up the main seal and gearbox seal along with the replacement bearings so yes I will be doing these (if I can get the 8 bolts out of the flywheel that is). I hadn't though of replacing the uni joints, I should price these up with Toyota. Thanks.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

After removing as many of the electrical connectors from the gearbox and transmission as I could reach it was time to remove the interior and gear levers.



I removed the steel plate and rubber booties - this was pretty simple. I found that the front two pins in the metal surround, while difficult to get to from above, could be punched upwards from underneath.

I din't know whether to remove the gear shifters only or the little plate attached to the gearbox and the shifter. So I tried to remove the circle clip to get the shifter only out.



This turned out to be the wrong approach so I removed the 4 bolts for each shifter plate and removed the shifters and surrounds. I stuffed rags into the holes to stop rubbish falling in.



In the next step we unbolted the top two bolts attaching the bell housing to the engine. These were a complete pain to get to! Photos won't make it any clearer but if you can have someone on the top of the engine looking down and another person below with a socket on extension bar & wobble neck. The top person can spot for the socket wielder to feed the socket along the top of the bell housing between the heat fins of the housing and onto the bolt. Using this approach we were able to go from no-go and lots of scratched arms to a pretty straight forward unbolting.



We also tried to remove the dump pipe to get better access but despite close access we couldn't get the nuts lose on the dump pipe.

Once the weight was taken on the trolley jack and the gearbox cross member was removed it was easy to wiggle the gearbox loose - plenty of leverage. The worry was more that the whole thing could roll off the jack and crush one of us - I recommend a transmission jack if you're doing this but it needs to lower right down, not be one of those things that sit on top of the trolley jack. We had to roll the gearbox off the trolley jack and onto my shop trolley to get it out from under the car.
As we lowered the gearbox on a trolley jack we removed the remaining electrical connectors along the top of the gearbox.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

The bits are piling up.



Percy is a feeling a bit lighter.



Trolley is making a good gearbox caddy.



Not much meat left on the clutch.



I hope my new clutch arrives soon so that I can start putting it back together again. It's getting cold here in Canberra in the mornings and Nadine isn't too keen on riding her bike to work in this weather.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

I want the flywheel off so that I can replace the main seal, when I use the breaker bar the whole motor lifts on the mounts but I can't crack the nut. Rattle gun won't budge them either - any ideas?

[matt150 Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close matt150]

Bigger rattle gun and larger air compressor will sort them mate. Painfull ? Yes.. But I reckon you might need one.

[samo Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close samo]

Did ya try flogging the breaker bar with a hammer to loosen the bolts?

[D4Dforme Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close D4Dforme]

Whoa............you are getting your teeth into it!........Those flywheel bolts proberbly require the help of an impact driver.......and large hammer.....Coates hire should have one you could get......Make sure you use an 8 point impact socket so you don't round the heads.

Dan

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Nadine just bought me a 800Nm Shinano rattle gun, we'll see if more than double the Nm loosens those bolts.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Action shot of the gearbox lowering. One person on the jack and the other manoeuvring the transmission down. It looks a little odd but I'm hanging onto the trolley jack to stop it shooting out towards me and dropping the gearbox on the ground with a thud.



Went down to Gasweld and picked up my $49 transmission lifter that goes on the top of the trolley jack. This should make the lift a lot safer and more sane. Apart from being higher the adapter can be angled and has a chain over the top to allow us to shove it around with losing it.



My new 800Nm rattle gun.



It made short work of the flywheel bolts on setting 3 of 4. It's the same size and weight of my other rattle gun but quality makes all the difference (and cost!).



The flywheel looks in pretty good nick but I might take it by a machining shop and see what they think. If it's not too expensive I might have it cleaned up and balanced. Now I can replace the main seal.