2003 tranny problems...

[Texx]

Bought a 2003 TRD SR5 yesterday, waiting on paper work to collect it. Lots of brutal miles in the oilfield, probably about 80% offroad use in the oilfield. Paid less than half of wholesale. Tranny grinds going into 2nd and 4th. Quiet once it's in gear, just grindy going in unless you baby it. Is this simply used up synchros, and if so, anyone try synthetic in the 5 speed with success?

 

[SteveH]

I found my shift quality dropped with synthetic oil in my '98 4Runner and switched back to plain old 80w-90 gear oil. The shifts with regular oil are slightly higher in effort, but they crunch less. You might try regular gear oil and the BG manual transmission shift additive (sold at most Toyota dealers). If the manual trans has seen hard use, you surely need to change the oil anyway.

 

[Texx]

Good point Steve, the whole truck has seen extreme offroad use. I don't have my hands on it till this week, I've had great luck with BG products in the past.

 

[dyogim]

I've gone through a tranny on my 00 4WD tundra. 00-04 tundras have had issues with the OD Planetary gears blowing. More so for 00-02 tundras.

I'd suggest dropping the tranny pan and look at the magnets at the bottom of the tranny. If it looks like this:

Then more than likely, your OD planetary and sun gears will look like this:

This is what I found when I took my tranny apart. If you don't find anything, it takes 4 qts of toyota tranny fluid to refill. Unless, you do a complete flush then, total capacity is 11 or 12 quarts.

 

[gregers05]

Bought a 2003 TRD SR5 yesterday, waiting on paper work to collect it. Lots of brutal miles in the oilfield, probably about 80% offroad use in the oilfield. Paid less than half of wholesale. Tranny grinds going into 2nd and 4th. Quiet once it's in gear, just grindy going in unless you baby it. Is this simply used up synchros, and if so, anyone try synthetic in the 5 speed with success?

I just put mobil 1 sythetic gear oil into mine a few months ago when i changed out my clutch. so far it seems to shift fine. im not sure what kind of oil was in it before but, so far no problems using the synthetic.

I've gone through a tranny on my 00 4WD tundra. 00-04 tundras have had issues with the OD Planetary gears blowing. More so for 00-02 tundras.

I'd suggest dropping the tranny pan and look at the magnets at the bottom of the tranny. If it looks like this:

Then more than likely, your OD planetary and sun gears will look like this:

This is what I found when I took my tranny apart. If you don't find anything, it takes 4 qts of toyota tranny fluid to refill. Unless, you do a complete flush then, total capacity is 11 or 12 quarts.

he has a 5spd not an automatic. manuals dont have the tranny pan. just a heads up