Topic: Tranny swap help... Toyota 3L diesel

[Kcizik]

I guess this post serves as kind of an introduction. I need to do something with my tranny, your advice would be greatly appreciated.
I am currently living in Nicaragua and my daily driver is a 1994 land cruiser LJ79. It has the 3L diesel with a G52 tranny.
My 5th gear whines, not horribly, but enough to let me know at some point it will need some bearings. Well if I have drop the tranny why not swap it with something better?
The one thing that drives me crazy with this setup is the engine is screaming at highway speeds. This truck has 4.88 rears and at  80kmh it sits at 2500-2600 rpms.
So a tranny with a higher 5th gear would be ideal for me.
In the research I’ve been doing it seems the 1kz engine was mated to a r150 or 151, though I could be completely wrong. Obviously with the lower first ratio. The 151 seems very ideal. I could pick up a 1kz tranny with transfer case for about $5-700. I realize the output shafts are different, so the t-case is a must. There’s also the option of possibly nailing down a h-series tranny. Would that be worth it for the puny 3L engine?
I don’t do much off-roading, only when it’s necessity here. I run open diffs as well.
Now here are my questions: besides the bell housing, what else would I need to change? Clutch, clutch cylinder, mounts, drive shafts?
Like I said, any advice you can give me on what tranny would best suit me and any other important information, all would be appreciated. Also, how to tell these trannys apart from the rest would help me a ton!

Kyle

[Team_Jake]

Kcizik,

You are right in that the R150 transmissions are compatible with the 1KZ engines. What you are probably going to have a hard time with is the bellhousing compatibility - the R150/R151 bellhousing and the G52 bellhousings are likely totally different, as well as input shaft size.

Even if you were able to do the swap, I don't think you'll see much of an improvement. The 5th gear ratios is only a 1.5% difference. To me, 4.88 gears sound way to low for a diesel, if you're looking for better rpm at highway speeds then look into changing your gears (e.g. 4.10 gears is a 20% difference).

You're probably going to have a hard time getting responses here, I suggest you go onto the IH8Mud forum, many more active landcruiser members there.

Good luck!

[Kcizik [OP]]

Great information, thanks for the reply. So I did some research, this country is full of 151f trannys.
So here is my questions: are the bell housings between a r150 and r151 compatible?
A lot of the 2004 and up prados run the 5L engine with the r150 tranny, being that I have a 3L that bell housing would fit my engine. So if I could get a bell housing from the prado with the r150, and a tranny from a 4Runner (r151f), could I make that combo work?
It’s true the gearing is high, but I’m stuck with it. This truck has the g144 axles, again from my research the gearing cannot be changed.

[cavey]

any surf with a 2L-T will also have an R series tranny