Post by 89gts on Oct 15, 2004 0:41:37 GMT -5
Sorry 'bout the long post here. Just my inexperienced experience with my tranny swap about a month ago. 
My ’89 GTS had 185,000km on it and the syncros were completely worn out in second gear making driving a big pain. I had to wait for the revs to drop to about 2000 before I could slowly shift into second to avoid a loud crunch. I was also told that the synchos were meshed into the tranny gears causing the strange whirring noise I have lived with since I bought the car with 115,000km 5 years ago. So, I decided it was time to fix this issue.
I sourced out a few quotes to get my transmission rebuilt by a shop in Calgary and found that I could purchase my car all over again for what they would charge. Man was I surprised! So that was not an option; buying a used or rebuilt tranny would have to be the way to go. It was cost effective, however risky (since you never know what you will end up with), to pull a transmission out of a GTS from a local junkyard. I was lucky to find numerous 3S-GE engines with related S-53 transmissions in one yard and played with all the shifters to see which one had the tightest feel. Interestingly, the one I choose as the best was out of an ’86 GTS with 480,000km on the odometer! But I figured if my tranny died at 185,000km this one would most likely have had to be rebuilt or replaced at some point and I was hoping it was done just before the car was junked!
So, the next step was removing the donor transmission from the junked Celica and hauling it back to my garage for cleanup and to start the replacement process.
Since we had to remove two transmissions, I will explain that part only once and hopefully show some of our mistakes with the first removal.
With the car at the wreckers, we were able to cut corners (literally) which sped up the process and made it less of a worrisome task since the only thing we were worried about not ruining was the transmission itself. I will however, explain the proper removal of the transmission assuming you were taking it out of a car that was supposed to run again!
The first step was to raise the car on jackstands so that there was ample clearance under the car to lay under it and work comfortably. Then we drained the transmission fluid by removing the drain plug that is located at the lowest point of the transmission housing. Once the fluid was drained, we put the plug back in and started to remove the smaller components over top of the transmission so that we would have room.
The entire battery housing/bracket, cruise control and air intake (including air box and bracket) was removed and set to the side. We then had room to unclip the back-up light switch and unscrew the speedometer cable (be sure to not lose the little brass speedo pin when you remove the cable – I had to keep the pin from my original tranny since the pin is longer on the older trannies and wouldn’t match the speedo cable on my car.) The last thing to remove are the two shifter cables. We had no idea you could just pull up on a retaining clip from the cable mounts on the tranny so we took an hour to hack through the cables themselves … seriously easier to remove the clips and if you plan on using the cables again it would be recommended to keep them in good shape!
Once all the transmission mounted connections were removed, we removed the drive axle from the drivers side. You need a 30mm DEEP socket to get the hub bolt off. We unbolted the nuts and bolt securing the ball joint to the control arm and used a pry bar to separate the control arm from the ball joint and allow the brake/shock assembly to be rotated out of the way of the drive axle. The drive axle was easiest to remove by prying it out of the side gear on the tranny with a screwdriver. There’s a ring on the end of the drive axle that goes into the transmission and it sorta locks the axle in place so you have to “pop” it out – just give the screwdriver a good hit and the axle should come free and slide out nicely.
We then unbolted the two braces under the engine – careful cuz they are really heavy and you don’t realize it until the last bolt is removed!
Now was a good time to take all the tranny-to-engine bolts out. I can’t remember how many there are but there are lots of them and all different sizes and a couple screwed in from the opposite side. Just feel all the way around the flange until you are confident all the bolts are removed. We tried to keep track of where they went by placing them in a row as we took them out – maybe sticking them into some cardboard and labeling their general location would be better.
Once all the bolts were removed, we supported the engine with a jack (we used a piece of wood under the oil pan to insulate it from the jack. With the engine supported, we removed the transaxle mount from the driver’s side fender. The mounts at the front and back of the engine were removed already so having this mount removed allowed the engine to be tilted down so the tranny would point towards the drivers side wheel well (Only the passenger side mount was still in place). We removed the mounts completely so we would have more clearance.
At this point we started to pry the tranny from the engine with one of us working with a screw driver from the top and one of us with a pry bar at the bottom so we could slide it out evenly. This takes a lot of effort and it’s best to support the tranny as it comes out. We used a tire under it so when it dropped it wouldn’t hit concrete!
With the tranny removed, we took off the flywheel bolts by using the pins sticking out of the flywheel. We jammed a ¾” rod against the flywheel and between the pins and locked it from turning so we could unscrew the bolts (8 of them I think). When the flywheel is removed, you should have it machined. It’s a stepped flywheel so it costs a bit more …. I had an auto parts store machine it for about $50CAN.
This is a good time to replace the clutch with a new clutch kit. Lots of choices in how much you want to spend. Make sure you grease up the release arm and all friction points really well so things work smoothly.
Once this was all done, we were ready to install the good tranny. This is really awkward and we decided the best way was to both sit facing the drivers side of the car with our legs under the car and tranny resting on top of us. Sounds awkward and it is but if the engine is lowered enough you can hoist the tranny up to it and slide it on. It took a lot of effort but we got it to mate with the engine and used c-clamps to press the alignment pins around the mating surface into there opposing holes.
From there, it’s just a matter of screwing all the bolts back in and torqueing them up to spec. The jack that was under the engine was used to bring the engine back up level to the mounts and we had to adjust the height to get the mounts to line up properly. Other then that, all components went back in the reverse order that they were removed.
I had problems with the shifter being locked so I was worried that it was a seized tranny!! After asking a lot of questions, I discovered it was the detent bolt on top of the tranny that holds the gear selector in place. The detent bolt was tightened too much and actually bent the selector assembly so I had to unscrew the assembly and fit in my original assembly and play with the detent bolt until the shifter had a solid feel but still moved through the gears with ease. This took me about 2 hours since I had to make an adjustment and then jump in the car to see what happened ….. about 100 hundred times!
However, I’m really please with how this project turned out. The tranny is really tight and the synchros are good. I can finally drive my Celica like it’s supposed to be driven!
I learned an incredible amount in removing the first transmission – mostly because I really had never attempted such a big project on my car or any other car for that matter. I use “we” throughout because I had enormous help from Chris Dittrick who agreed to lend a hand and his expertise and to whom I owe a huge thank you.
I hope this post helps some of you out with a similar project and I encourage this to be built on with other (better) ideas to some of the steps I outlined. Pics would have been great but they were not on my mind while I was in the garage …. next time for sure!!!
Cheers
My ’89 GTS had 185,000km on it and the syncros were completely worn out in second gear making driving a big pain. I had to wait for the revs to drop to about 2000 before I could slowly shift into second to avoid a loud crunch. I was also told that the synchos were meshed into the tranny gears causing the strange whirring noise I have lived with since I bought the car with 115,000km 5 years ago. So, I decided it was time to fix this issue.
I sourced out a few quotes to get my transmission rebuilt by a shop in Calgary and found that I could purchase my car all over again for what they would charge. Man was I surprised! So that was not an option; buying a used or rebuilt tranny would have to be the way to go. It was cost effective, however risky (since you never know what you will end up with), to pull a transmission out of a GTS from a local junkyard. I was lucky to find numerous 3S-GE engines with related S-53 transmissions in one yard and played with all the shifters to see which one had the tightest feel. Interestingly, the one I choose as the best was out of an ’86 GTS with 480,000km on the odometer! But I figured if my tranny died at 185,000km this one would most likely have had to be rebuilt or replaced at some point and I was hoping it was done just before the car was junked!
So, the next step was removing the donor transmission from the junked Celica and hauling it back to my garage for cleanup and to start the replacement process.
Since we had to remove two transmissions, I will explain that part only once and hopefully show some of our mistakes with the first removal.
With the car at the wreckers, we were able to cut corners (literally) which sped up the process and made it less of a worrisome task since the only thing we were worried about not ruining was the transmission itself. I will however, explain the proper removal of the transmission assuming you were taking it out of a car that was supposed to run again!
The first step was to raise the car on jackstands so that there was ample clearance under the car to lay under it and work comfortably. Then we drained the transmission fluid by removing the drain plug that is located at the lowest point of the transmission housing. Once the fluid was drained, we put the plug back in and started to remove the smaller components over top of the transmission so that we would have room.
The entire battery housing/bracket, cruise control and air intake (including air box and bracket) was removed and set to the side. We then had room to unclip the back-up light switch and unscrew the speedometer cable (be sure to not lose the little brass speedo pin when you remove the cable – I had to keep the pin from my original tranny since the pin is longer on the older trannies and wouldn’t match the speedo cable on my car.) The last thing to remove are the two shifter cables. We had no idea you could just pull up on a retaining clip from the cable mounts on the tranny so we took an hour to hack through the cables themselves … seriously easier to remove the clips and if you plan on using the cables again it would be recommended to keep them in good shape!
Once all the transmission mounted connections were removed, we removed the drive axle from the drivers side. You need a 30mm DEEP socket to get the hub bolt off. We unbolted the nuts and bolt securing the ball joint to the control arm and used a pry bar to separate the control arm from the ball joint and allow the brake/shock assembly to be rotated out of the way of the drive axle. The drive axle was easiest to remove by prying it out of the side gear on the tranny with a screwdriver. There’s a ring on the end of the drive axle that goes into the transmission and it sorta locks the axle in place so you have to “pop” it out – just give the screwdriver a good hit and the axle should come free and slide out nicely.
We then unbolted the two braces under the engine – careful cuz they are really heavy and you don’t realize it until the last bolt is removed!
Now was a good time to take all the tranny-to-engine bolts out. I can’t remember how many there are but there are lots of them and all different sizes and a couple screwed in from the opposite side. Just feel all the way around the flange until you are confident all the bolts are removed. We tried to keep track of where they went by placing them in a row as we took them out – maybe sticking them into some cardboard and labeling their general location would be better.
Once all the bolts were removed, we supported the engine with a jack (we used a piece of wood under the oil pan to insulate it from the jack. With the engine supported, we removed the transaxle mount from the driver’s side fender. The mounts at the front and back of the engine were removed already so having this mount removed allowed the engine to be tilted down so the tranny would point towards the drivers side wheel well (Only the passenger side mount was still in place). We removed the mounts completely so we would have more clearance.
At this point we started to pry the tranny from the engine with one of us working with a screw driver from the top and one of us with a pry bar at the bottom so we could slide it out evenly. This takes a lot of effort and it’s best to support the tranny as it comes out. We used a tire under it so when it dropped it wouldn’t hit concrete!
With the tranny removed, we took off the flywheel bolts by using the pins sticking out of the flywheel. We jammed a ¾” rod against the flywheel and between the pins and locked it from turning so we could unscrew the bolts (8 of them I think). When the flywheel is removed, you should have it machined. It’s a stepped flywheel so it costs a bit more …. I had an auto parts store machine it for about $50CAN.
This is a good time to replace the clutch with a new clutch kit. Lots of choices in how much you want to spend. Make sure you grease up the release arm and all friction points really well so things work smoothly.
Once this was all done, we were ready to install the good tranny. This is really awkward and we decided the best way was to both sit facing the drivers side of the car with our legs under the car and tranny resting on top of us. Sounds awkward and it is but if the engine is lowered enough you can hoist the tranny up to it and slide it on. It took a lot of effort but we got it to mate with the engine and used c-clamps to press the alignment pins around the mating surface into there opposing holes.
From there, it’s just a matter of screwing all the bolts back in and torqueing them up to spec. The jack that was under the engine was used to bring the engine back up level to the mounts and we had to adjust the height to get the mounts to line up properly. Other then that, all components went back in the reverse order that they were removed.
I had problems with the shifter being locked so I was worried that it was a seized tranny!! After asking a lot of questions, I discovered it was the detent bolt on top of the tranny that holds the gear selector in place. The detent bolt was tightened too much and actually bent the selector assembly so I had to unscrew the assembly and fit in my original assembly and play with the detent bolt until the shifter had a solid feel but still moved through the gears with ease. This took me about 2 hours since I had to make an adjustment and then jump in the car to see what happened ….. about 100 hundred times!
However, I’m really please with how this project turned out. The tranny is really tight and the synchros are good. I can finally drive my Celica like it’s supposed to be driven!
I learned an incredible amount in removing the first transmission – mostly because I really had never attempted such a big project on my car or any other car for that matter. I use “we” throughout because I had enormous help from Chris Dittrick who agreed to lend a hand and his expertise and to whom I owe a huge thank you.
I hope this post helps some of you out with a similar project and I encourage this to be built on with other (better) ideas to some of the steps I outlined. Pics would have been great but they were not on my mind while I was in the garage …. next time for sure!!!
Cheers
. LOL next write up will have pictures LMAO - thats another 200,000 miles to wait. LOL>
