1998 Hilux gearbox 5th gear bugged

I had the same situation (not a Hilux) had the box rebuilt, new bearings and syncro’s and a few months later, chipped a gear on 5th.
Totally piss’d off ,I ground off the remaining teeth and just used 4th. Eventually replaced the box.

I’ve never had the confidence to rebuild gearboxes, and given how difficult they are to remove I would go for a recon.
Steve

People do rebuild them - but the only gearbox I ever rebuilt was on a Triumph motorcycle.

Problems with DIY gearbox rebuilds are a) How do you know when 'worn' is too worn. b) Gearbox internals tend to be very expensive to replace being precision machined & hardened.

If it were me I'd be looking at a reconditioned or second hand replacement, might even get a trade in on your old one.

For someone who knows what they are doing finding one or two 'donor' gearboxes cheap might be the best way to go.

Hello

A friend of mine (a retired mechanic) found it was cheaper/same to purchase a new gearbox from Toyota than it was to have the broken one fixed. Something around $3k. Obviously the nature of the problem with the gearbox itself and your level of mechanical knowledge/skill would have some bearing (no pun intended) on what path is the best/cheapest/easiest but that option is worth of investigating.

Cheers
Greg

Hi Freddy, a friend of mine had a similar problem with a Nissan a few years ago with a Nissan Navara, After 3 warranty fixes Nissan advised don't tow in overdrive. I believe the message is don't flog the car in 5th. 4th is much easier on the engine and economy

Is this helpful?

Gympie 4WD Spares

Is that 5th gear “bugged”, or 5th gear “buggered”? :)

Sorry, couldn’t resist it.

Macca.

You could re-build it on the cheap...

I had the box in my old courier drop a bearing so all I had was 1st, 2nd and 4th. I dropped the box, stripped it down, cleaned out the carnage, replaced all the bearings and threw it back in.

All was good and I drove it from Brisbane to Longreach and onto Cooktown. Of course as soon as I was at the furthest point from home the syncros on 5th started to play up and it would occasionally pop out of gear.
By Townsville I had to hold it in 5th with my hand as it would pop out of gear if I backed off the power and by Rockhampton I was wedging my knee against it to hold it in gear or it spit into neutral all straight away.

That time I dropped the box out and took it in for a re-build.
The new bearings were full bits of bronze syncro and had to be replaced, along with 5th gear and all the syncro. $500 for a bearing set from Repco, $700 for another bearing set through the gearbox place, 3 lots of gear box and transfer case gear oil, the arse pain of dropping and installing the gear box in the driveway with inappropriate tools (having to make specialist tools to get the nuts of various shafts) and a couple of days of my labour that could have been better spent elsewhere.
2nd rebuild cost only slightly less than a recon gearbox off the shelf and I did the remove and install myself.

The old story, do it once, do it right.

Thanks guys for all your help, I should be right from here. I’m probably going to go down the recon or new box route, doesn’t appeal to me having to drop it again in 6 months cos I did it on the cheap.