Presentation and advise required: manual transmission removal

Hi All!

I am new in this place, so I suppose I should introduce myself and my ride.

I am based in the north outskirts of Madrid, Spain, and at the beginning of the year I acquired without a 1995, 3.0 TD Manual transmission 4Runner in Palma de Mallorca without seeing it.

However the truck is in quite good condition, given its age and mileage (Kilometer-age?): 270000KM. It belonged to an elderly couple that used it to go to their beach house, do shopping, etc.
I started using the truck immediately, doing the required repairs and maintenance meanwhile: oil changes, CV boot change, some electrical work, rear camera install, etc.

But now, the big item is in order: clutch change, so here the question:



Manual transmission (G58 I think...) removal


I have removed all pieces requiring removing following the service manual, including clutch hydraulic cylinder and starter. I have removed the chassis crossmember and all screws from the transmission.


But....

I can not find enough clearance to remove the transmission. I tried all possible angles and rotations, but the bellhousing always touches the cab low parts at the left (driver) side...


Can someone offer some help?

Did you have had the same problem?


I am quite stuck there, the only idea I have is trying lifting the cab from the chassis, but it seems to be too drastic measure...


Thank you in advance


Regards,

linoprah

 

If it's the V6, the transmission is an R150. Is it 2wd or 4wd?

 

Try taking the exhaust off and tilting the engine down. There is a lot of stuff in there and it will not be much fun and will not move very far either but it might be enough for you to get the trans down.

 

Yup, disconnect the exhaust between the CAT and the collector that is at the side of the bell housing. The crossover pipe makes getting the upper bell housing bolts a really difficult proposition. The gear lever/s are removed right? Because it won't budge with them in the tanny tunnel.

 

I took the tranny out of mine a couple months ago. We didn't need to take off the exhaust. The trouble was with getting the bell housing far enough to the rear for the bell housing to clear the front diff assembly. Need to take off the shifters and prop shafts first though.

 

Thank you all for your suggestions and sorry for not be able to give you an update early.


After much head scratching, I achieved to identify and solve the problem, and it was very interesting one.

I will maintain the suspense for some more lines...

The original issue is that the car I own is a very specific and unusual version that seams has be sold in very small quantities in Europe (primarily Spain), and in somehow greater quantities in UK and Australia & New Zealand, but with right sided steering. As a result, it was quite a struggle to find matching service manuals. Always, at least something was out of place: starter at the wrong side, different exhaust manifold, etc.


Making the long story short I had to remove everything:

Both Shifters
1st piece of exhaust
Both prop shafts
Front sway bar
Central chassis crossmember

Then, tilting the transmission and engine down and using a lot of extenders, the bell housing bolts were relatively easy to remove.

And then the interesting challenge started. Traying to move the transmission back, it had less than 5cm (couple of inches) of clearance. Now, after solving the case I know that if I had tilted the transfer MUCH more aggressively, it would have cleared the obstacle. However, I was reluctant to do so, because it would have been impossible to put it back.

Finally, after much thinking and traying, I observed something strange – even though both the cab bottom and the bell housing are symmetrical, the clearance problem presented itself only at the left-hand side! So, I had a realization – as I work from the ground in my yard, for safety reasons I decided not to jack the vehicle but use ramps under the front wheels instead. Only the rear-right corner was jacked to enable free rotation for the back diff.

The higher rear-right caused the asymmetrical clearance. And the front being much higher than the back caused the engine and transmission being misaligned to the body (the engine supports traying to level up).

Finally, lowering the front and elevating the back, it worked like a charm. Both taking out and putting back the transmission was super-easy.


Once again, thank you for your suggestions.


Enjoy your rides!