5spd swapped - No reverse gear - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

drugal · 10-05-2005, 02:41 AM

I just finished replacing my 5spd tranny on my 3S-FE. I got it finished today, and discovered that the reverse gear doesn't work.

The shifter slides into reverse without any hesitation, and stays in place. The reverse switch isn't activated either. *Nothing* at all happens, and it's as if the transmission is still in neutral. No sound, no weird movements. Gears 1-5 work fine.

I got the tranny at a DIY junkyard, and I'd like to keep it if it's possible to fix.

Few questions:

1) How hard is it to open it up and replace the reverse gear parts? I have my old transmission here, which I can take good parts from.

2) How crazy is the idea of taking apart the transmission while it's still mounted and supported by jacks, etc.. in the engine bay?

3) Could this simply be an external linkage issue that I overlooked?

Gary_602Z · 10-05-2005, 05:37 AM

Sounds like a linkage problem.

Gary

white90dx · 10-05-2005, 07:02 PM

Operate the linkage by hand in the engine bay to check if its your linkage...

Also, make sure the reverse light switch is hooked up.

-Charlie

fredk · 10-05-2005, 07:11 PM

its probably a shifter end bushing worn out, they go bad and it wont go into gear properly, they are in the ends where you hooked them to the trans, also check the ballcrank on the trans for slop, this is the thingie that has the levers that the shifter cables hook to

drugal · 10-05-2005, 10:16 PM

I just tried pushing my car around in all the gears, and it turns out 5th and reverse don't work. The car rolls freely in those gears.

I removed the shifter cables from the bellcrank and tried putting it into reverse and 5th by hand. When I move the lever that selects 5th or reverse, I can hear something moving inside the transmission. This lever's range of motion is way to big though, compared to the tranny I just pulled out. It's pretty much just swinging back and forth with minimal resistance.

Could someone with a more detailed drawing of the transmission internals give me an idea? Right now i'm thinking that maybe the related shift fork broke.

JetspeedCamry · 10-05-2005, 10:39 PM

Mine did this when I did my swap, though, judging by you having a 3SFE, wouldnt seem like anything would have to be custom. But anyways, try moving the position of hte lower cable backwards by abour 25mm. You might find you need to shim it so it works, it sound exactly like the problem I had. In the end, i removed the brakcet, cut the face of it, removed 25mm of material and welded the face back on so it sat that much backwards.

fredk · 10-06-2005, 05:44 AM

5th is easy to look at, its under a cap on the end of the trans by the drivers side tire, reverse is the farthest inside the trans, so it sounds like a shifter problem to me too

drugal · 10-10-2005, 02:56 PM

I removed the tranny and opened up the cap at the end of the transmission. The bolt that connects the shift fork to the rod was loose and had come out. This let the rod rotate, resulting in the bellcrank missing it completely. I put the bolt back in, and it seems to work fine now.

The shift fork is cast aluminum, and had cracks around where the bolt goes in. I opened up the old tranny to compare, and it had cracks in the same place. The mileage difference between these two is about 300k, so I'm not really sure what to think about that.