Transmission and P0402 help.

After a two year affair with 2007 Tundra, I sold the humongous gas guzzler and got into 1st gen Taco. I bought the Taco pretty cheap in my opinion... $3800 for 2000 access cab 4x4 2.7L manual with 272k miles. Truck is no beauty queen but great platform to start with, plan is to fix it over time, get all bugs figured out and hopefully put 3" lift with some 33's on it in the very distant future. I have work truck so I only drive 4 miles to work each way, plus I have 2nd car to drive which just gone through very detailed engine rebuilt and runs like a champ.



I knew that it will have issue which I was ok with. I consider myself somewhat mechanically inclined and being able to do most of the work myself, going as far as engine swap if needed.

When I test drove the truck, everything checked out, engine purred nicely, transmission shift good and everything else looked OK for age and mileage.

2nd day of owning the truck I broke the clutch



There it went, transmission out and new ebay clutch went in. It was the cheapest clutch kit I found, $60 shipped. Came with clutch, pressure plate and throw out bearing, probably overnight from China.



Transmission and transfer case out. Of course the shifter seals were gone and leaked all over the transmission. Not something little elbow grease and a lot of brake cleaner wont take care of...



Had some left over grey RTV so I made my own shifter seals...



Shady ebay clutch.



Sourced pilot bearing from local O'reilly and customized pilot bearing puller to fit.



All installed, pressure plate torqued to specs according to FSM. I put in new rear main seal as well.



After putting everything back together, it shifts but it is difficult to shift into 1st or reverse from dead stop. Thinking clutch system might be the culprit I replaced; clutch master cylinder, clutch slave cylinder, took apart clutch lines and blew them out with compressed air, then put in new fluid and bled it until I had clear fluid coming out with no bubbles... Very little change. I have also played with the clutch engagement point for a very long time (threaded rod which connects to the clutch pedal).

Very little change In order for me to shift to 1st, I have to press clutch pedal all the way in and shift to 2nd then to 1st.

Before you say bad synchronizers, I also cannot shift easily to reverse from dead stop which is non synchronized gear. In order to shift to reverse I have to shift to 4th than to reverse. Truck fails spin down test 98% of the time. This makes me think the clutch is not engaging 100%. When I try to shift to 1st or reverse it doesn't grind, just feels like hitting a wall and gear just wont go in. Sometimes usually after I drove the truck for a while I have to press and depress the clutch several times while at dead stop for it to even go to 2nd gear then to 1st...

My conclusion is bad transmission or bad clutch. Is there any way how to find out which? I would even be willing to go to shop and pay someone to look at it if necessary, yes it will hurt my ego, but I really like the truck and want to enjoy driving it. This issue makes it PITA to drive!

Also truck has P0402 code which says bad EGR or EGR solenoid. How do I determine which it is? Both parts are not exactly cheap...

Any advice is greatly appreciated

 

Anyone has any ideas?

 

Today I opened the clutch reservoir and saw the fluid looks like its contaminated. If you look closely, you can see the black spots on the side of the reservoir.







This fluid was completely new two weeks ago... It went through good flush, blew air through all clutch lines to get everything out, Master and slave are new, I am out of ideas. I am leaning towards ordering OEM Master, Slave and clutch line. I will try bleeding it today as well and see what happens....

 

Well the contamination is coming from the lines as all other parts are new.

It sounds to me like the pressure plate is not disengaging.

It's not uncommon for reverse to not sync without going into 1st to lines things up with a truck tranny.

I would start by flushing the clutch fluid again. You can see that is a problem there. Also make sure there are no leaks anywhere along the lines yielding a pressure leak/ drop.

You're welcome to come by my place and we can look at it further. It sounds like your chasing the correct geese, just haven't bagged one yet.

 

Hows the shift from like 2nd to 3rd at speed? Is it super super smooth? A tad rough?

 

Its not super smooth, but it goes in every time. I would say its a little rough, same goes for other gears. Sometimes when cruising at 5th, clutch in all the way I would have hard time shifting out of the gear, almost feels like the clutch is not engaging 100%.

 

Took the transmission out and pulled clutch and pressure plate after being installed for around 2000 miles. Couple things which I am concerned about;

1, There was a LOT of dust inside the bell housing.
2, Release bearing wear pattern on pressure plate.
3, Some rivets on clutch show signs of polishing.
4, Scratch marks on front of bell housing.







Am I dealing with defective parts (pressure plate, clutch, release bearing) or is my transmission bad and causing this? Possibly transmission input shaft bearing?

 

Clutch in backwards? There are two different sides.

 

Flat side was installed against the flywheel.

 

It was the cheapest clutch kit I found, $60 shipped. Came with clutch, pressure plate and throw out bearing, probably overnight from China

I would have gone with the best here. Just not where I would go cheap.

 

Just placed an order for an OEM Aisin clutch kit. (clutch, pressure plate, release bearing and pilot bearing.)

I am hoping that oem clutch kit will solve this problem...

 

Good install with OEM clutch kit, can't go wrong there. Good choice.

 

Brand new OEM, clutch, pressure plate and release bearing.



Old release bearing on left, Brand new Koyo release bearing on the right. They are quite different...

 

Oooohhhh beautiful ... Wish I was there helping put that thing of beauty in. I'm always blown away by the high quality, and it's easy to see when you have something to compare it to, of the OE Toyota uses in their trucks. For example the wheel bearings in my Cruiser look like they belong in a full-size 1 ton pick up. Bea-u-ti-ful. How about some pics of the Aisin clutch and pressure plate??? Please... Pretty please? Yeah, yeah, I know I'm weird already

 

Another example is the auto tranny they put into the first gen Tacomas, 4 cylinder and the V6. IIRC, it's the same auto that is in the Land Cruisers from 91-94 and also in the little passenger buses over there in Japan! The Cruiser has to weigh a thousand pounds more than the taco and the little bus even more. That tranny behind a compact 4 banger pick up?! Talk about over-kill, and that's not a bad thing, if you know what I mean

 

You're "somewhat mechanically inclined"???

Good God man, I considered myself mechanically inclined until I saw what that actually means.

 

3RZ bottom end at 280k miles. Looks great!



Oil pan cleaned and ready to go back on.

 

It does look really good. I'm very impressed with Toyota bottom ends. I've been into a corolla with that mileage and still saw cross hatching in all of the cylinders. Amazing. Keep the pics coming, if you don't mind for us nerds. Nice work

 

Awsome work. Did the Aisin kit fix the problem?

 

Yup with Aisin kit it shifts great!