4.7 Gears Toyota

[Lorri Dent]

Amanual transmission is the oldest transmission type for modern vehicles and is also the easiest to understand from a mechanical perspective. For some, this is the transmission they learned to drive on. For others, manuals seem difficult and scary. But what exactly is a manual transmission?

As we've said before, a transmission is the gearbox of the car. This gearbox contains several gear sets. A gear set is selected depending on the speed you need. The clutch engages with the correct gear set.

Still, many manufacturers offer manual transmissions for drivers who prefer them. Many drivers attest to the manual transmission as being a more exciting, involved, and even personal way to conduct their vehicles.

Prior to the 1980s, automatic transmissions weren't as capable as manuals. But as car manufacturers got better at making them, they became the standard. Now, more than 90% of drivers in America have an automatic-transmission-driven vehicle.

This is a newer type of transmission, works much like a traditional automatic, and is fast becoming the standard offering for most vehicles. Many vehicle manufacturers are opting for CVTs because they deliver better fuel economy than other transmissions and have a simpler, more reliable design.

As we've said before, manual and automatics have gear sets. Continuously Variable Transmissions (or CVTs) instead have a driven pulley, a driver pulley, and a belt or chain. The belt or chain is wrapped between the halved pulleys. The pulleys press together and separate.

When a manual or automatic needs more or less speed, the clutch disengages from the current gear set and is made to select a new one. CVTs, on the other hand, never need to disengage. Instead, the belt is always running. What changes is how far apart the halves of the drive and driven pulley are. See the diagram above.

If the driven pulley halves are pressed together and the driver pulley halves are apart, that's a low gear. If the driven pulley halves are apart but the driver pulley halves are pressed together, that's a high gear. The CVT switches "gears" by pressing together or pulling apart the pulley halves.

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Find the perfect gear package for your Toyota Tacoma. Are you a weekend warrior? And overlander? Or an avid rock crawler? Match your tire size with your driving habits to find the recommended gear ratio for your ride. For example, if you have 35" tires and and find yourself tearing up the trails all spring and summer, a gear package with 5.29 gears is the perfect solution.

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Bobby came over to my bench and asked to see my direct clutch plates. I pointed them out to him and he proceeded to pick them up, stack them together, center them on the edge of my bench and put his body weight on them just enough to bend them a little.

I freaked out and asked him what he was doing. Bobby told me to get the old clutch plates out of the box and let me show you. I looked at those clutch plates carefully and noticed they all had a wave to them. He then told me if I had put the ones without a wave in them that I would have experienced harsh reverse and a harsh/firm 2-3 shift concerns. It was a great lesson to learn!

The codes were cleared and the vehicle was taken on a road test. During the road test it was discovered there was no 5th and 6th gears. When we got back to the shop we checked the fluid, it was dark and smelled burnt!

The shift problem was only on the 2-3 shift and shifting into reverse. The first thing the builder thought was there must have been an accumulator spring in the wrong location (figure 2). The valve body and accumulators were removed, only to find that everything was in the right locations.

Toyota gears and lockers can have an overarching impact on the off-roading experience because they ensure that there is no loss in drive performance, no matter how rugged or rigorous a particular terrain may be. For drivers who want to maximize the capabilities of their four-wheel-drive vehicles, or maintain performance despite the addition of larger tires, then lockers and gears are a vital upgrade.

Gears are parts of the differentials in your Toyota which must be adjusted when you have transitioned to larger tires; re-gearing allows your vehicle to once again achieve optimal performance with reduced drivetrain strain.

Toyota is bringing a simulated manual transmission to its electric vehicles. It's apparently pretty fun, and the Japanese automaker's way to add more engagement to its EVs likely won't be limited to just six or seven speeds, like most manuals these days. A recent patent application from the automaker published just a few days ago claims there's technically no limit to how many "gears" such a device may have. Images published alongside the technical document show as many as 14 speeds. How does that actually work? The automaker explains that, too.

The patent goes into a lot of detail concerning the ins and outs of such a system. In a nutshell, the driver will be able to select exactly how many ratios they want. "The number of the virtual gear stage may be six stages or more, or less than six stages," the document notes. "A driver is allowed to select a desired pattern in line with his/her preference."

The whole "select a pattern" part is a little misleading, though. To be clear, the automaker does not describe some kind of electro-mechanical system to effectively create as many physical shift gates as the user desires. Instead, there would be a fixed number of actual gates; likely six but Toyota uses four as an example. A gear is selected just like a regular manual, however the lever may return to the neutral position after it's used. Then, as the driver goes through the gears, the virtual pattern shifts to the next set of "ratios." So if there's a pattern of six gears and sixth is selected, a display will change the available ratios inviting the driver to go up to seventh and all of the gears after that, or down to fifth and the existing set of gears.

Confusing? Well, there's a reason why automakers have never gone for more than seven gears in normal passenger cars. A 14-speed manual isn't practical when mated to a gasoline-burning combustion engine. When your manual transmission is just being simulated, though, Toyota seems to think there's no harm in giving people a choice.

Given how I have babied this car and its transmission, almost never ground the gears, and earned the respect of everyone I drive by how I drive, including the fact that the clutch is still fine at this high mileage, it seems to me something is really wrong for the tranny to go before the clutch. I have done some googling and discovered that many, many people have had bad experiences with this transmission - a fact that really bothers me given the Toyota name and expectations. And these are people who got tons of miles out of their previous cars.

"My transmission started making a low grinding noise. It is the failed bearing. After doing some research I realized that the 6 speed does not have this reliability issue. I talked to the guys at monkeywrenchracing.com and they explained why this is. When toyota designed the 6 speed, they started with the 5 speed design and added an extra gear. The extra gear needs a longer shaft, the longer shaft needs an extra bearing, and that extra bearing tranfers alot of the load.

If your driving is predominantly city/stop and go stuff this can be made much worse because 3rd and 4th gears are the most commonly used ones while in motion.

Resting a hand on the gearshift lever can also exacerbate this problem.

If it were me I would have the car fixed the cheapest way possible and then sell the car. A rebuilt transmission will have the same weak point at the bearing. Basically, it is a poorly designed transmission.

Thanks. I have contacted a good transmission shop and am getting a quote on replacing the transmission with a 6-speed next week. I may also ask them to look at it and tell me what a repair would cost.

Electric cars do a lot of things well. They're smooth. They're quiet. They're easier on the environment, and they're even scientifically proven to be less stressful. But what they don't tend to be is engaging, at least not in the way that a traditional car with three pedals and a stick shift is.

A manual car requires a lot more of the driver. That level of forced engagement brings with it a sort of focus that can make the simple act of driving a lot more fun. In an ideal world, it would be possible to layer that kind of engagement on top of the otherwise ideal EV experience.

Let's start with what a traditional manual transmission is. In the cockpit, you have a shifter, used to select gears, and a third pedal on the floor, the clutch, which sits to the left of the brake. Pressing the clutch effectively disengages the transmission from the engine, allowing you to move the shifter and select a higher or lower gear ratio.

Driving a manual car not only demands the responsibility of steering and braking and all the usual things required of any car. You must also select the proper gear ratio to ensure smooth, efficient power delivery. As anyone who has learned to drive a stick can tell you, it ain't easy at first. The seemingly simple act of coordinating your left foot with your right hand takes practice, and then there's all the nuance of slipping the clutch and not stalling the car.

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