FollowupID: 616744 Submitted:
Wednesday, Feb 11, 2009 at 01:56
Splits posted:
Freeplay is another name for wear. The mechanic may be referring to an excessive amount of movement in the gear lever while in neutral. I just checked my Hilux (70,000 ks) and it has about 5 to 6 mm of forward or backward movement of the lever before you feel it touch the selector forks inside the box and start moving them. As the box gets older, that movement will slowly increase due to wear. When it gets to the age and mileage of the average 60 series, it could be three or four times that distance. It may also travel a lot further before it fully selects each gear.
The movement in yours will all come down to a combination of wear in the selector forks at the end of the lever, the other end of the forks where they sit in the gears, maybe the end float in the gears and a few other things.
There is nothing you can do about in your situation and there is nothing to adjust. Make sure it goes fully into each gear and does not jump out. If that is ok and there are no strange noises, then just get in and go. You can get a transmission specialists to check it at home.
If he wants to overhaul the box then get a couple of opinions. They have to be pretty bad before you have to think about overhauls.
Brian