[MOXIEINMONTANA]

1987 Celica GT, 3SFE 2.0, w/automatic. I"ll get to my point fast, please bare with me... I think my A140L had a catastrophic failure yesterday. When I came off the highway at an exit the car was in overdrive and I let off the accelerator. The transmission/transaxle seemed to drag the car to a hard stop and finally locked up the front wheels at about 3 or 4MPH. I tried to shift the car to neutral during this sudden deceleration, but it didnt help at all. When the car skidded to a stop, I tried to shift it into drive and reverse. The car seems like it wanted to move because I can feel the transmission engage in reverse and drive, but the car wont move. It wont even roll in neutral. No leaks, nor did anything spit out of the trans or the transaxle. It wasn't the brakes, the shafts or anything, it was definitely in the transmission/transaxel.

So... I understand that "L" and "E" are different in some aspects, but bo the A140L and A140E share some of the same parts. Are the gear ratios the same, major internal parts the same? My research has led me to conclude that I may not find a working/used A140L, however there are all kinds of working/used A140E's out there. Say I tear my A140L down and find the problem in a major part, like planetary gears or something in the transaxel... Could I use planetary gears or the transaxel components from a A140E to fix my A140L? Was thinking about going this route to fix this Celica, if I can?
Thanks for reading.

 

[sdspeed]

You've probably seen the following. Rebuild kits appear to be available. Maybe grab a used one from a salvage yard not too far from home base. Saw several on car-part.com. Also I believe their gearing is the same.
A140E
4 Speed Electronic Controlled Automatic Transaxle (ECT)
Applications (calendar years):

• 1997–2000 Geo Prizm(4 cyl.) (rebadged Chevrolet Prizm after 1997)
• 1986–1989 Celica GT/GT-S (with ECT-S)
• 1994–1999 Celica GT
• 1994–1998 Curren ST206/ST207/ST208 (with ECT-S)
• 1992–2001 Camry (4 cyl.)
• 1999–2001 Solara Camry (4 cyl.)

1	2	3	4	Rev
2.81	1.549	1.000	0.706	2.296

A140L
4 Speed Hydraulic Controlled Automatic Transaxle (2-way overdrive)
Applications (calendar years):

• 1985–1986 Camry TurboDiesel
• 1986–1989 Celica ST/GT (without ECT)

These transmissions have a governor gear. Unlike the A140E counterpart which is electronically controlled, the A140L uses a plastic governor gear to select which gear to go into. Over time and wear, this plastic gear's teeth shred and eventually cease to be able to control gears. This results in a transmission that can only shift to first and reverse, but not to any further forward gears. Replacement of this governor gear is relatively inexpensive compared to a replacement transmission as it can be serviced without taking the transmission out of the car.

 

[Amory2]

Is A140 a three-speed? If so then maybe it has a separate fluid reservoir for the differential which could have gotten too low, similar to the A131L on the Corolla. The A131L frequently gets tanked because owners have no idea the regular AT dipstick doesn't tell them about the ATF level in the differential. IMHO a poor design on Toyota's part.

You could probably pull internal parts out of an A140E and use them, but you couldn't install an A140E in your car w/o also installing a new ECM to match. Am a newbie but I think this would also mean getting the entire wire harness as well.

AFAIK the only difference between the two models is in how the transmissions are controlled, so yeah I'd guess there are probably a lot of parts in common.

That is a very interesting question though if you could transplant over the hydraulic control portion of a -L into a -E model. As a newbie I would guess it is a long shot (as in probably not do-able), but maybe someone more knowledgeable will comment.