Supposedly if you put baby powder all over your arms and such before you mess with fiberglass it won’t get into your skin. Also sometimes I’ll use duct tape to try and get the fiberglass splinters out of my skin, sorta works a bit..

If you get a pair of panty hose/tights, cut the leg sections off, cut the toe ends off, and slip them over your arms it works pretty good for fiberglass. You will look absolutely ridiculous though lol

I'm planning on a 3RZ clutch job soon, have everything but the flywheel. So the Power Torque flywheel (NPW136) from O'Reilly's are decent? They are so cheap I'm a bit leery... Mine has 160K on orig everything (chatters a little when cold too) , so figured a new flywheel might also be a good idea.

Haha dropped my phone and accidentally thanked you for this post when I caught it ...but I might actually use this knowledge down the road too. So thanks isn’t totally inappropriate

Prepping the back of the engine for the rebuilt transmission

After getting the old clutch and flywheel off I chased and cleaned the flywheel bolt holes and went after the old pilot bearing. The "bread method" works beautifully for pressing out the old bearing. Stuff soft bread into the center of the bearing until full then pound a 12mm bolt into the hole. Teflon tape on the threads to help it seal up. Keep pounding and adding more bread until the bearing begins to move outward and finally out.



New pilot bearing installed and old rear main seal pulled. Now what're we gonna do about this annoying groove in the crankshaft sealing surface?



Silver Seal sells a nice crank sleeve (part MS-333) and corresponding driver (MST-333). Shown here with a new OEM seal



**Side note -- I have an extra sleeve and this driver tool (modified to work better) and would be happy to share with a forum member in need!** Another side note - LCE sells this crank seal as well but NOT the driver tool so I had to get it from the manufacturer directly.

The plastic driver supports the seal precisely. You can see how the end of the seal has a little fillet fold that stops it at the end of the crank once its installed all the way.



Problem is, the driver doesn't account for the boss that holds the pilot bearing so it will only press the seal on halfway. That won't do. Fortunately we have a highly competent in-house machinist to help fix it up. A little time with a 1-5/8" hole saw did the trick.



Now we can press that sucker all the way on without interference.



Once pressed on we have a nice smooth, hardened stainless sealing surface for the new crank seal. The install was super easy.



The driver tool makes short work of pressing on the new OEM seal as well.



Now we're ready to tackle the flywheel. I made a handy dandy tool out of a piece of square aluminum tube to hold the flywheel still. It captures one of the dowel pins and borrows two of the pressure plate M8 holes. Slip a breaker bar through and lean it against the frame. Again -- I'm happy to loan this tool out if someone can use it!



Ten new OEM flywheel bolts threaded in and snugged up in a few passes. FSM says to torque to 19 ft-lb and then tighten 90* more in sequence. I put some sharpie marks on to guide me.



Aisin clutch kit, alignment tool, and 6 new OEM pressure plate bolts



Torque to spec in a few passes and we're finally ready to put the transmission in



More to come!

That bread method is new to me. That's awesome it works!

Transmission project is complete!! Another big shoutout to @fourfive for helping with both the removal and install. I couldn't have done it without the help of such a great friend. I'm continually amazed by the fantastic folks I have had the chance to get to know in the Toyota world.

Grubby drivetrain as it came out vs cleaned up and ready to go





I used GA Precision Gear in Woodstock, GA for the rebuild. They rebuild the W56 in my 1st gen years back and did a great job for a very reasonable price. The small crew does exclusively manual transmissions and are top notch at their trade.

The W59 had some worn bearings and synchros but was overall in pretty good shape. They assessed the transfer case as well and recommended that it be left alone -- apparently it is very rare for these cases to require a rebuild. They kept my old W59 parts so I could check them out



I went ahead and replaced the clutch fork, boot, and ball. The pivot points and the throwout bearing slide all got Honda urea grease and the splines got Honda Moly 60 paste. Honda recommends their urea grease for this application exclusively. Based on my research about urea based grease I learned that it survives long term high temperature without dropping or oozing much better than normal bearing grease (lithium, lithium complex, or aluminum complex for example). It has superior damping qualities too which helps smooth the actuation.







It is better practice to install the transmission separately and then the transfer case so that the transmission input shaft can be more easily slid into the clutch disc without risk of bending the disc. However, the shop went ahead and installed the transfer and stated that they were worried due to the design of the shift forks that it would be difficult to install separately. So we installed it as one unit and took extra care to align it and ensure that once we had contact with the clutch the transmission got pulled straight in and was not allowed to torque on the clutch disc.



Now that's it's all said and done I have to say that I am very happy with the results. When we first cranked it up there was a slight hissing noise from the clutch when the clutch pedal was actuated in or out. This disappeared after a little driving so I believe this was simply the new friction material wearing into the new machined surfaces of the flywheel and pressure plate.

Clutch grab is very smooth and predictable as it should be. Driving around the transmission is much quieter and some of the rattles and chatters that used to come and go are completely gone. With my short shifter especially the synchros feel quite tight but this was true for my old W56 rebuild as well. After a few hundred miles they wore in and were perfect so I expect the same here. I filled the trans with some conventional Sta-Lube 85W90 GL-4 which I intend to drain after a few thousand miles to collect wear-in material and switch to Redline MT-90.

It feels great to have this project all done and to be back on the road! It's also really nice to drive a "modern" vehicle again after driving the 1st gen around for a couple of weeks. It's fun to drive but one does get tired of the 22RE in a hurry

Thanks for reading!

Dude, fast job! (and good job too, I suppose!)

I gotta get my Alltrac Camry back on the road. It is the only MT vehicle in the fleet right now I and my left foot is getting bored.

-Charlie

Thank you @sleepydad for the cool idea! I was happy to shamelessly copy it

Some shifter updates!

I absolutely love my LCE short shifter but one of its flaws is the poor clearance between the shift base and the body. You can read about that on my earlier post here.

While I had the trans out I trimmed the body somewhat to help clear the bolts. I also added some low-profile socket head bolts (50mm) since it's easier to stick a ball-end hex wrench in there rather than a socket. I'll probably do this for the tcase shifter (25mm) as well since it's still a little screwy getting a 12mm socket on those bolts.





I had been suffering from a rattle coming from my 4WD shifter for nearly a year. It would come and go and eventually got to where it would fire up whenever the engine was revved much past 3000rpm (which is a lot when you drive a 3RZ). After the transmission rebuild it got a LOT quieter but it would still come and go.

My first theory was that the Marlin shifter base was too hard and wasnt cushioning the shifter ball enough. So I went ahead and bought a new shifter base (36108-35060) which came with the OEM bushing. Yes, this one won't last forever like the Delrin one Marlin makes but I can always swap it out later. You can see in the comparison images that the Marlin seat sits lower than OEM. The OEM has a little rubber washer at the bottom as well.

I'm glad I got this new base because clearly the spring had gotten hung up once or twice and squished the shifter base.









Interesting to note that the ejector pin locations are different between the two bases so the die casting mold is different.

When playing around with the shifter lever I located the source of the noise! The smaller inner washer has some clearance between its ID and the shifter lever. In operation this smaller washer slides around underneath the bigger washer which is locked into the base. But the lever has slack with respect to the small washer so it can bang around. Countermeasure was to bend a piece of 10mil brass shim stock and jam it in there to take up the slack. Some self vulcanizing silicone tape to keep it secure.







I'm happy to report that the annoying shifter noise is GONE!

Well, I lied about fixing my shifter rattle noise. It came back pretty quick and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why it was happening.

I unscrewed my wooden shift knob on the tcase shifter and... it stopped. Now I realize that the shifter can kind of resonate in a see-saw motion causing the inner end to rattle against the tcase shift forks. I think the particular choice of wooden knob caused it to have a troublesome resonant frequency. I put a different shift knob on there that is plastic-rubbery (from a 1st gen actually) and now the noise has not returned. The rubbery aspect probably helps damp out the vibration somewhat too. Fingers crossed that it's gone for good!



Also, I got a couple of factory fresh OEM keys cut at the dealer!

So that's where my hair ties went!

My wife drive's my 4Runner like once every 6 weeks and there still has to be a hair tie on the shifter...

-Charlie

Well, when you need one, you need one!

If you ever met me, you'd know I'd need one