Oh Shit oh shit oh shit. big hole in my bell-housing please help

Calling all first gen experts.

So i have a 04 single cab 4 cyl, manual trans taco

I had the clutch replaced.

Came out fine, only about 2 weeks after I got it back I was messing around on some flat desert roads and said hey lets throw it in 4 wheel drive, so I did that (the right way of coarse i stopped moving put it in neutral and all that jazz) after i shifted into 4WD the truck would not move. Just lurched and stopped dead when I tried to accelerate, and killed the truck. I didnt think anything of it becasue it was getting dark, need to get home so I drove back in 2WD just fine, drove it back and froth to work for a week, then took it to the shop that did the work today.


Shop calls me today and says "what did you do to puncture your bell housing?"


So fellas what I need to know is:

What could have caused the bell-housing to be punctured, I was thinking maybe something to do with the front drive shaft hitting it and breaking it? The puncture is on the drivers side right behind the front u-joint.

Do Tacomas not have a removable bell-housing like on american trucks?

Are bell-housing patches effective?

At this point I'm pretty sure the guy that did the work knows what happened. I got a few minutes to go see the hole in the housing to day, and what do you know the 4WD is magically fixed, he says there was nothing wrong with it. But I must have been drunk and high as hell because I tried the 4WD a few times, all time it didn't work so I have no idea what the hell to do, because this "mechanic" can't give me a straight answer to what happen he just seems to be lying about the whole thing.

Thanks guys, any helpful advice would be very much appreciated.

 

Do you at anytime remember hitting anything that could have put a hole in the bell housing ??

Did you Have the front drive shaft fail and come off??

Remember any loud bangs

Yes but the Transmission unbolts from the inside not the outside like American Trucks.

If You Need to have others do your service work Check things all work before paying the bill.

I wonder is some of the ADD system not hooked up correct causing the system to not engage ??

This is what is bad paying another shop to fix someones mistakes.

 

Thanks man, Ya I was on a flat road so I'm pretty sure nothing hit the housing, I didn't check the front drive shaft to see if it was connected. That was dumb of me, honestly I've been so mad about the whole thing that when it happened I drove it home an just parked it for a few days.

I don't think that the front shaft was disconnected because I would have seen it hanging down right?

Just want to make sure, Im understanding you

Your saying the housing does come off, just the bolts are on the inside of it, instead of the outside, right?

I haven't payed anyone to fix this, I took it back to the original shop that did the clutch for me, I know they messed up the 4WD so they are going to fix it for free even tho they say it wasn't broken. Haha its amazing, he tells me it was never broke, I must have been dreaming when it wouldn't work. What I think is he knows that one of his guys did something wrong causing the whole in the housing and he doesn't want to admit to anything being done wrong because doesn't want to pay to get a new housing.

 

More likely he does't want to pull the transmission back out.

If he left the front driveshaft unattached on the front end (weird but possible) when he got done with the clutch, you would have no 4x4, and the end of the driveshaft could maybe spin around and knock a hole in the bellhousing if you gunned it hard enough.

 

Having the front dshaft unattached wouldn't make the truck immobile, it would just be in 2wd. Unless you *needed* 4wd for that situation most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

 

He said it lurched then stopped dead when he tried to accelerate. So the end of the shaft could have smashed through the BH and then hung up, causing the motor to stall.

 

Sounds like you need to make a claim on your comprehensive insurance and have it fixed

 

I wonder if he forgot to install the 4 bolts that mount the xfer case to the cross member. Without them in I bet it could move over enough in 4WD. Just a thought.

 

Thanks for the input guys.

 

Just to clarify the truck drives fine in 2WD, the problems all started when I tried to shift to 4WD.

 

I missed that part, read "after i shifted into 4WD the truck would not move." Read to me like it was in N and not in 4wd, so linkage adjustment. My f250 has a spot past 4hi that is back in N. It took me a while to figure out to stop at the first bump and not to pull all the way back. It's my beater so not enough of a concern to do the adjustment

Pics would help.

 

For sure crawl under and look at things