2003 Tacoma Trans swap?

Where can the filter be found?

 

I'm tellin ya man. Drive it till it craps out. You said it performs fine. It could be the converter, but you could end up spending alot of money chasing down this noise. Just turn the radio up! LOL

 

On my 2002 2.4l auto you have to pull the automatic transmission pan to get to the filter. Drain the fluid first.

 

I bought a new filter and pan gasket. I also picked up a few quarts of Castrol Import ATF which says it works for Toyota T-IV on the back which is what my dipstick says. They had Mobile 1 synthetic, but I am worried to switch to a synthetic at this point having no idea whats in there now at 154k.

I ran to the store and back and checked my ATF level with the car running and its actually a good inch above the top hot notch. Sounds like there might be too much in there.

The other issue is my only jack is a low profile racing jack that goes from 2.5" to 14". Hardly enough to even get the wheels of the Tacoma off the ground.

 

Smokey,
That might be a little too much fluid in the trans. If it's an inch above the hot level and probably not hot because of the short trip maybe that is causing the whine?
I have these Rhino ramps for the Taco, tractors, UTVs,ATVs.
Handy.

 

I'm hoping this trans fluid swap and having it at the correct level quiets it down. Before I checked it I drove 45 min home from work, the car sat for an hour then I drove the 20 min around town so I would imagine it was hot enough.

I actually have a set of the Rhino ramps I just couldn't get to them behind the 'stuff' in my garage.

The more I look around, the more it seems the truck was used to tow a boat. The rear trailer hitch looks well used, corroded and painted over. There are 3 screw holes to the left of the dash vents which might have held a brake controller at some point. The brake light connector by the hitch is the more circular heavy duty one.

 

Has anyone heard of actually replacing the transmission pump without rebuilding the transmission? I've gotten a few quotes from reputable sources about replacing the torque converter. They are all telling me that the majority of the time its the transmission pump and that in this trans you can't replace the pump without taking apart the transmission so its easy to just get a used trans.

 

I've changed my auto trans oil about five times (2.5 quarts a time) and am always surprised how cool it is especially compare to the engine oil. The last time I had pulled a trailer with a mower (approx 1500-2000lbs) about 30 miles and changed it immediately to see how hot it was and again it was not that hot. Next time I will check it with a thermometer.
I can't get my SGII to read the trans temp.
Anyway good luck with the pan drop/filter change and let us know the results.
A photo of the pan/filter would be nice information.

 

Put the front of the truck up on ramps and got about 6 quarts to drain out of the pan. Then i dropped the pan, but couldn't get the dipstick tube to come apart despite hitting it with PB Blaster the night before. I had to pull out the pan with the whole dipstick tube. The oil was supposed to have been changed 40k ago with a full tuneup and timing belt. Despite that it was pretty dirty and it took 5 quarts to fill it back up. It still has a whine to it, but it sounds much quieter.

 

Old Filter and trans fluid




new filter installed





The pan

 

I'm no expert, but that doesn't look healthy. Kinda looks like chocolate milk...

 

Smokey,
I'm no expert either but that is some nasty transmission fluid.
Thanks for taking the pictures.
I would drain it several times or get a flush at a shop to get most of that burnt fluid out of there.
Drain, refill, drive a little, repeat.
Like I said earlier, mine was making a clunk shifting from first to second and three simple changes fixed the problem.
A couple more changes and I bet you are good to go.