w56/w59 hybrid transmission build.

[patrickkissman]

Hello guys! in the approximately 100k miles I have put on my 2tr-fe swapped truck/4runner it has suffered from some transmission issues. I put roughly 50k miles on the unknown condition w56b from a '88 pickup. a little over a year ago it suffered a mid plate bearing failure on the main shaft causing it to pop out of 1st gear when you hit the throttle after coasting. I rebuilt the transmission and all was good for about a year before it killed the input shaft bearing and lost 4th gear. one of the known issues with the early w series Toyota transmissions is they use a small input shaft bearing that was prone to failure. Toyota updated this design in 1992 when they switched to a larger sealed bearing. I wanted to upgrade my 4runner transmission to hopefully prevent any more future transmission issues. I did some trading with a friend and obtained a 2wd from a 2002ish tacoma. you will need a w59, either a 2wd or a 4wd transmission should work as a donor. you will also need either a complete w56 donor, or at the very least a w56 4wd main shaft, the rear case half and the w56 shifter and shift rod. having a rebuild kit on hand with new bearings and gaskets would also be a good idea. step one, open up the donor w59

to remove the case halves you need to remove the input shaft cover and remove the 2 snap rings that retain the input shaft bearing, and the front counter shaft bearing. you will also have to remove the 12mm head bolt that retains the shifter receptacle? on the shift rod. after that remove the long 14mm head bolts that hold the 2 case halves on and it will slide apart. next the shift rods and shift forks need to be removed. there are a total of 4 plugs that need to be removed, the 3 on the side retain the detent springs and balls for the s*** rods. the one on the top gives you access to the 2 interlock pins that go between the shift rods. I took a ton of pictures removing all of the shifter parts. I recommend doing the same, but if you drop something or forget to take pictures of something here you go.

 

[patrickkissman]

apparently I can only post 5 pictures at a time, so here are more pictures of disassembling the shift forks.

that is the upper interlock pin

 

[patrickkissman]

even more pictures

this covers removing all of the shifter rails and the reverse gear

 

[patrickkissman]

the next step is to remove 5th gear from the counter shaft. there is a small spacer and a washer you need to make sure you dont loose.

dont loose the small spacer that sits above the needle bearing.

 

[patrickkissman]

this is where I kinda stopped taking a whole bunch of pictures. RM garage on youtube covers disassembling and reassembling a w56 in great detail, and basically all of that applies to the w59. as they are very similar other than the synchro design and the clutch hubs are different. anyways here was how I removed 5th gear and the output bearing from the main shaft. since the donor was a 2wd and I have zero use for a 2wd main shaft I decided **** it, and cut the shaft in half with an angle grinder.

pull the snap ring and remove reverse gear. now you are ready to remove the mid plate bearing and you can slide out the main shaft and the counter shaft.

counter shaft removed

the next step is really time consuming but not that difficult. you need to remove 1st, 2nd, and 3rd and the associated clutch hubs from the w59 main shaft and transfer it all to the w56 main shaft. I took zero pictures of the process but its pretty straightforward. once those parts are swapped you can put the w59 input shaft on and slide it along with the counter shaft into the mid plate.

ready to reinstall the shift forks. this is all w59 stuff with the exception of the w56 main shaft and the transfer case coupling.

you will need to use the w59 front case half and the w59 bearing plate, so you can retain the larger w59 input bearing. I also reinstalled the baffle thing that the w59 has that goes around the gear sets.

 

[patrickkissman]

now onto the only actual thing I needed to modify for this build. the shift rod, the w59 shifter forks have a narrower slot for the shift rod to fit into. the 2wd shift rod was way to long and did not have the bolt hole for the shifter receptacle to bolt into. a 4wd w59 shift rod might just drop in and work, but I did not have one to experiment with. I opted to cut down the w56 shift rod so it fits in the shift forks. if you do not trim the shift rod you will be unable to shift the transmission into any gear as the shift rod will be pushing on 2 shift forks at the same time.

I forgot to take a before picture, but this was after I made "adjustments" to the shift rod with an angle grinder. not the prettiest thing in the world, but it works.

once that is done you can install the shift rod and slide the rear case on. then its ready to install!