man trans shifts hard

I have a 96 4cyl 5 speed that shifts hard after about 45 minutes of city driving. The motor is not overheating but it shifts hard. I bought it with about 165K and changed the fluid. It now has about 180K. Should I try using amsoil or other type of fluid. I can get my hands on a 5 speed in a 6 cyl but not sure if it will line up with my 4cyl. Please let me know what you guys think. Thanks!

 

Quit dropping the clutch.

Problem solved

 

You can try changing the tranny fluid to a synthetic and see if that helps, but more than likely it's the syncros. The v6 tranny is different than the 4cyl one. The 4 cyl tranny is a w59 but can't remember the code for the v6.

 

Thanks for the info. Any certain kind of make of synthetic you would recommend i.e. Mobile, Castrol Etc?

 

I use redline's MT90 in my tranny. I wouldn't hesitate to use amsoil's sever gear either.

 

Ummm the title if you read it wrong sounds pretty messed up

 

i see what you did there^

 

Pull the shifter and check the nylon/plastic bushing that the ball of the shifter rides in. I had shifting issues in my 93 and it was the bushing, it was damaged and not allowing the gears to engage without force and sometimes grinding.

 

Mine does the same thing with 170k. Clutch is strong, absolutely will not slip even when trying, no leaks, no noises, pedal feels great, shifts into all gears fine.

After city driving\lots of clutch usage, the transmission is hard to get into 1st gear from a stop. If I put it into first before I come to a stop, or if I put it into 2nd, then 1st it's fine. Any other time it goes right into gear without a hitch and seems fine. Even after a 3 hour highway trip it seems to be fine. This only happens after driving around the city for 45 minutes or so. I can take the most direct route to work which is about 30 minutes of driving through about 20 stoplights and it will not act up, but if I take that route and go run an errand and spend another 15-20 minutes rowing through the gears it will get hard to get into gear. On two occaisions when I had the transmission in 1st or 2nd with the clutch in at a stop, I felt the engine shake and try to stall before I put it into Neutral. This tells me it's a hydraulic issue.

I flushed the clutch fluid 4 times and bled the system 4 times with no change and it wasn't very dirty. I flushed and refilled the transmission oil with no change and it wasn't very dirty. I've replaced the shifter ball & socket with new pieces from Marlin, which greatly improved the shift feel between gears, but didn't affect the hard 1st gear engagement issue.

I plucked a clutch slave cylinder and clutch master cylinder from a junkyard '03 TRD Prerunner with 46k, for less than $20 total, so I plan to try these on my truck in the next couple of weeks to see if there's any difference. If so then one of them is leaking internally. If no change, I'll be ordering a new Aisin clutch. Right now it's no big deal and it's been doing it for about 2 months.

 

True story, after replacing the shifter bushings in mine with Marlin Crawler's poly bushings, I noticed a lot of improvement in shifter feel . . . and they're not that expensive or hard to replace!

 

I did all this when I had shifting problems immediately after buying mine:

-replaced the shifter seat and socket with Marlin Crawler parts
-drained the existing transmission fluid and filled with Redline MT-90
-Checked for Master and Slave cylinder leaks or air in the system
-had slight pedal adjustment done

After none of that worked; I figured out it was the clutch dragging; so, threw a Marlin Crawler Heavy Duty in there
Turns out the last person who did a clutch job on it put the clutch disc in backwards... DERP!

here's the long version: http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/technical-chat/270677-95-5-tacoma-hard-notchy-shifting-solved.html

 

Thanks guys! I think I will try the fluid change and shifter bushings - ball. In the middle of a rehab of my kitchen so hopefully this weekend.

 

Hey guys, I picked up an '03 tacoma 4 cyl 5 speed manual a couple of weeks ago and I'm having the same problem.

Going through the maintenance records, the previous owner complained to a shop that it was hard to put into 2nd and they replaced the transmission fluid right before he sold it.

It seems like it takes a little more force than it should to shift from 1st to 2nd sometimes. It always takes a good amount of force to put it into 1st if I'm rolling between 5 and 10mph.

The truck only has 50k miles on it so I was starting to wonder if that's just normal for this model of transmission or if I should try to figure out what the problem is.

I got under the truck while a buddy pushed the clutch in and the master and slave cylinders appear to be ok. When the clutch pedal is depressed, the release fork moves to what seems like an appropriate position and then stays there. If one of the cylinders were leaking, I was expecting that the fork might very slowly move back towards it's starting position.

I could definitely try replacing the shifter bushings.

I was thinking that maybe my clutch isn't completely disengaging. I might try jacking up one of my back wheels and then putting it into first and keeping the clutch depressed. I'm expecting that if the clutch doesn't disengage completely, the raised wheel would start to spin.

The clutch pedal has an appropriate amount of play.

Anyone have any thoughts or ideas?

What are the options if it gets really difficult to shift? Transmission rebuild to replace worn out synchros?

 

First off: where the heck did you find an 03 with only 50k on it?! dang!

When I bought my truck it would completely lock me out of 1st
It ended up being that my pilot bearing was toasted and whoever did the last clutch job put in the pressure plate in backwards (seriously)

Here's the long story: http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/technical-chat/270677-95-5-tacoma-hard-notchy-shifting-solved.html

Still, my Trans doesn't like going into 1st unless I'm going 5mph or less
And it's "chunky" shifting between 1st and 2nd
But! my truck has 214k on it

Given your symptoms, a dragging clutch would be my first suspect

But, with only 50k on the truck, your clutch, shifter seat & bushing, etc. should all still be good; given normal operating conditions
It's especially hard to imagine your synchros are shot at 50k miles; granted; if the previous owner didn't have any clue how to drive stick; all sorts of mayhem is possible

 

My 95 tacoma, 5 lug 2.4 5spd, did the same thing, i'm wondering if it's just the nature of the beast, my truck has 188,xxx miles on her.

 

Mine has started doing this recently too. It can be difficult getting it into first from a stop or moving less than 10mph. Once in a while it grinds too.

 

Just bought my first tacoma. I was driving a Ford Ranger. mine usually shifts fine but you have to push the clutch way too hard to the floor and it engages almost at the floor, making it hard to drive with boots. Any ideas on adjusting the clutch? This thread seems to be still a bit undecided on this issue(?). The shifter bushings sound like a good first step (68dave and Loggerhead). I haven't done any tranny fluid yet. Clutch slave cylinder looks dry and seems to be doing its thing...fluid in the res looks good. B

 

Listen to Dave- I had the same problem, bushing fixed it.

 

see this thread: http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/1st-gen-tacomas/341963-lost-third-gear.html