Exploding bell housing

Alright, ya ll asked for a new thread so let’s kick it off. My son has a 2003 Tacoma prerunner with 2.7 auto trans. Truck is mostly stock with 80,000 miles, give or take. Friday morning he was running down the interstate at 80 mph and he said it was like hitting a truck but he didn’t hit anything. Truck basically locked up and went from 80 to 0. Thankfully he didn’t hit anything and no one hit him. First look under the truck most of the bell housing is gone. I found an old thread where this happened to someone else so I was wondering if anyone had and input.

 

There was no large chunk or even a piece big enough to see around the truck.

 

Sucks, sorry to see this.

I wonder if he hit something and it impacted the trans and obliterated that part of the housing and perhaps wedged in there which brought it to a complete stop. Is there any visible damage to the skid and down the length of the underside?

Get it up on stands. Can you shift it into neutral? Does the driveshaft move? Can you rotate the crankshaft manually? Torque converter turns as well? If so, may not be a complete loss.

If everything is locked up, trans is most likely toast IMO. I'd remove the transmission completely and get it out of there. From there, inspect the flex plate. If it all suddenly locked up, good chance it sustained damage as well.

 

Yeah it’s going on the lift Monday and the trans is coming out. From there it ll be inspecting everything. You can shift it into neutral and push it but when the tow truck tried to tow it from the front, once he got some speed he could feel the whole truck shaking. He ended up putting it down and lifting the rear to tow it to the shop.

 

I hope the rear drive shaft was removed?

This failure is nothing like the other thread the only common thing is the destruction of the bell housing.

I agree impact damage or the flex plate broke . The impact may have happened a few days ago a piece just broke off and was pulled in and locked things up.

It does not take a big piece to lock things up !! That force was transferred to the bottom of the bell housing.

A small 10mm bolt was enough to stop a fly wheel from turning.

Tell him to be honest if it hit anything.

Things happen. Interesting for sure.

Good Luck.

 

Only one drive shaft, 2wd automatic

It might be different from the other one but both descriptions read the same. Both going down the highway and bam.

I’m not saying he didn’t hit something but I don’t see how. It’d be hard to hit the bell housing and not damage the steering rack right under it. Not impossible but I don’t see it. Besides where we are there’s flat ground and not trails, so i know he hasn’t been rock crawling or anything. Lol.

 

Just a habit using rear drive shaft that covers them all that have a drive shaft.

 

Any news?
Locked up converter?

 

Is the bell housing broke all the way around, it looks like it is, or is it just missing pieces from the bottom? If the engine or transmission twisted violently (say if the engine or transmission locked up at speed) it could have sheered the bell housing all the way around and the bottom just dropped chunks out, as opposed to something from inside or outside going through that bottom section.

If its vibrating badly when towed in neutral I would take a look at the insides of the transmission, or at least the transmission fluid. Also try and turn the crankshaft by hand to see if the motor spins.

But I'm just a dirt bag 3rd gen guy so I don't know anything.

 

It appears the joint in the driveshaft locked up and twisted the trans.

 

We’ve replaced the driveshaft, the trans, the torque converter, the flex plate, the wiring to the trans, and the trans dipstick.

 

Wow that was a very expensive universal joint.....

would that of damaged the differential too.....does that have a slip or give?


My first guess would of been failure of the flex plate, or one of the bolts there..
this is the cheapest piece of crap metal on the truck....

Shouldn't the torque convertor prevent that back feed to start with?

 

Was the u joint getting greased regularly? Was it the original one? 80k isn't that much but 20 years is.

Do you have any more info on the failure? Did the drive shaft disconnect or just get stuck in place?

 

Yeah some good pics...dont see that everyday.


And yeah when I bought my truck....that first summer I swapped all the UJ's and that carrier bearing.

on the middle and rear, half the needles were gone, but they were well lubricated, in a bunch of rust dust.........
there were zero signs......tough little bastards....

 

Ok

 

Appears it just got stuck in place. Yeah, 20 years is some age and we haven’t had the truck that whole time. Not sure the history on it but it definitely sat somewhere for such little miles.

 

Shouldn't the torque convertor prevent that back feed to start with?[/QUOTE]

think it started at the back and went forward. At least that’s the guess. It’s possible something locked up in the trans but after this happened, we had no problem shifting it into neutral

 

I wonder if he could of money shifted (downshift from 5th to 2nd) that would cause some major damage. Nvm just notice it's a auto trans

 

I find it incredible that a u-joint could cause all of that damage. Which one of the four u-joints on the driveshaft failed?

 

Yeah if we gave out awards here.....you'd get one.