I’ll try to keep this as short as I can, and not to whine too much, but I need a little help with my two Toyotas:
1985 4Runner with a 22RE with a 5 speed, presumably a W56. Formerly (until a few days ago) fairly cherry and mostly stock. Thursday night, two days after my ankle surgery, my wife rear-ended someone, and mangled the right front fender, hood, bumper, etc – crazy Seattle traffic! I’m buying it back from the insurance company, and will fix it, but it’s going to have to wait, at least for a while until I back on both feet.
1984 Xtracab with a 22R (carbureted) and a G52 Transmission with Marlin Crawler number 817, which I converted myself, as well as 4:88s, Detroit Locker in the rear, Trutrac in the front, also installed by me, 80K miles ago . I started a rebuild on this transmission before buying the 4Runnner due to a bad roller bearing and worn synchros (225K miles). I replaced all of the bearings and synchros (and bedded them in), but during reassembly per the FSM, I noticed that it locked up, engaging multiple gears at once – it only spins in neutral. I thought this might be because it was just the gear stack only supported in a vice, so I installed the stack into the housing, complete with shifter, but no luck, same problem. I took it back apart, re-checked everything, but no smoking gun. What should I check next? Further complicating things, I intended to do this over a long 4th of July weekend…a year and a half ago, and on the second day, we received word that my Father-in-law had passed, and I had to drop everything for a while. When I came back, things got busy, I found the 4Runner that I always hoped to buy, so I put the G52 tranny rebuild on the back burner and my wife started driving the 4Runner.
Now that the 4Runner is out of commission, I need to get the Xtracab back on the road ASAP, but I’m still on crutches for weeks. I’m down, but not out, and can still spend short periods of time in the garage, in between icing my ankle and be nagged on by my wife for not taking it easy.
I have two options as I see it:
1) Figure out what I did wrong during reassembly of the G52, and reassemble it the right way, and stuff it back into the Xtracab. I really don’t see how the shift forks could be assembled incorrectly, or the detent balls. I took decent photos of before, during and after, and had the exploded view and FSM the whole way, but trying to get my head back into this after so much time is tough, and I don’t want to waste time doing trial and error while on crutches, if possible. Any ideas of what I might have done wrong?
2)Borrow the W56 from the 4Runner and install it in the Xtracab. I realize that it’s not a direct swap, but doable, and that the W56 is much stronger than the G52. This is the least desirable choice because the 4Runner is smashed and not roadworthy, but still driveable if I need to move it.
I’d hate to waste the time, money and effort that I have in the G52, only to scrap it (and take a hit to the ego). But I need to get a vehicle back on the road, as quickly and painlessly as possible. I consider myself a pretty competent mechanic and fabricator, but I'm stumped, ANY input would be much appreciated!
