What have you done to improve your 6-speed manual?

Why are you attacking here??? Did not say anything about a Frontier.....friend. Of course a better transmission exists. There is always room for improvement no matter what we are talking about. But LIKE I SAID, comparing a truck transmission to a car transmission, IS STUPID.

The 6 sp in my truck fits my needs. It does exactly what is was designed to do. If it breaks I will fix it. Mechanical things break from time to time or need refined. Get over it.

EDIT: and yes I am a fanboy of my truck. Afterall I'm on a "fanboy of Tacoma's" forum. Good luck finding a non-fanboy here dood.

 

Maybe we should start a tread who thinks their Taco 6 speed is just fine the way it is? I'll start it "yes it's fine". The Tacoma is just one of the smaller trucks I drove before deciding that it was the best all around truck for the money.

 

don't get me wrong if I were to use my truck as a DD i wouldn't have a single complaint about the tranny, but for what I want to do with it, it won't work too well.

 

I have a 2012 with 1500 miles on it and love it. I agree that 6th could be a little taller. For those of you complaining about shifting too many gears in traffic or in town, I have found that when in town going from 1st to 3rd to 5th works great and in higher speed areas 2nd to 4th to 6th is nice. As far as the syncros, use 1st to get the truck moving then leave the clutch alone and float the gears. These trucks do it well.

 

What gear oil are you guy using in the 6 speed. The manual says 75w90 a little under 2 Qt. Standerd gear oil, Mobil 1, Amsoil or somthing else.

 

Redline MT-90, and nothing else. The 6 spd is very sensitive to the oil you use.

 

I was baffled at the MPG difference on the highway from my automatic to my new six speed. This thing is geared all wrong in my opinion BUT I sure do love driving a manual again!! nostalgia. . . I bought my 12 in my hometown and hit the highway to head back home and averaged a little over 14mpg. My old tacoma held steady at 2000rpms when I was doing 75-77ish... this one rides right around 26-27 hundo at highway speeds. Anyone else pissy about this haha or is it just mine?

I'm starting to thing the dealer peed in it for my 'free full tank'

 

The thing is geared for towing, which I'll probably never do, but I love driving manual.

 

I found that driving the truck with a full tank of gas as much as i can helps with the smooth shifting. When the tank is almost empty it feels like a different truck.

 

I put the amsoil 75w90 in my 6spd and all of the gears seem to shift fine no matter what temp, except for the 1st to 2nd gear shift it seems the syncros for that are crap.60 percent of the time it tries to grind unless I shift it really slow.

 

The amsoil is part of your problem. The oil is too slippery to drive the synchros up to speed quickly. That's partly why you have to shift so slow. Drain it well and replace it with Redline MT-90.

 

I used amsoil manual transmission GL-4 75-90

 

Yups, 6th gear needs to be higher. But here in Hawaii, its pretty rare that I need to go over 65. I wonder if there's an easy way to regear the 6th gear?

 

According to the UG, 75mph = 2700 rpm. Kinda the forget the can, bring on the funnel behavior at that speed.

I don't think anyone has regeared it successfully. 2WD guys can buy a T-56 and have it adapted but those of us with 4WD are out of luck.

Personally testing Mobil 1 75w90 atm just to see how much shift degradation there is with GL-5. It's not bad. I can't even tell a difference from the stock fluid on these 20F mornings. Either way no nudging into 1st gear at 5 mph in the first couple miles. When it's over 40F outside it feels like snick-snick which makes NO sense at all. How can a synthetic GL-5 shift like dino GL-4?

May switch to MT-90 in the future. The extra sulfur in the GL-5 should stay buffered as long as it's changed every couple years but who knows how much faster it'll react with the brass parts than GL-4 even then. The book does say either is ok, but sometimes warranty durations influence the books.

 

Gl-5 is too slick for these transmissions. It's designed for differential use. Mobile-1 is one of the worst I've tried in this tranny. Your shifting will probably continue to degrade. I've tried most all of them and the MT-90 was by far the best. Toyota does spec either, but then they created this mess too . If you do use a GL-5 try to find one without friction modifiers. Nothing but MT is ever going back in mine.

 

That's what I had thought as well. I knew MT-90 was a good choice, but I wanted to test if M1 synthetic would do the job for less $$$ and availabie locally.

It baffles me for sure. It shouldn't shift worth anything with M1 in it. It's friction modified for limited slip clutches for pete's sake. For reasons beyond me it shifts absolutely smoothly. It's not just the new fluid thing either, I have over a thousand miles on it thus far and it's gotten better, not worse, and even now when it's cold out it fights me less often than the OEM fluid did. Of course its mileage boost is always welcome (this is one area the GL-5 hypothetically beats GL-4).

Every tranny has its preferences I guess. Another gearbox may very well hate the stuff. I won't complain if mine is a cheap date.

 

On a slightly different note... How much do you guys think it would cost to remove the automatic transmission off a gen 2 Taco and install a proper manual tranny. Given the work and money involved, of course it would be a waste to install a standard gen 2 6-speed. So, imagine installing something else that's better. Any ideas?

 

Look up Allen Philips Racing, they do T-56 transmission swaps into 2nd gen Tacomas.

 

Do they have a website? All I could turn up was a yellow pages listing. Apparently it is "Allan Phillips"

Allan Phillips Racing

(830) 438-6343
29221 Fm 3009, New Braunfels, TX 78132

 

You could swap in a T56. Several of the X-Runner guys have done it.

In your case, you would also have to swap the ecu.