--- In toyota-campers@y..., r_hayden@e... wrote:
Hi folks. I talked to the owner of the shop in Oregon City that did
the transmission rebuild today and he gave me some information that
might be of use to Toyota motorhome owners, as well as those
interested in the details of the rebuild job. Here goes:
When I shared with him the AAAMCO manager's opinion about how one
should always pay top dollar for repair work, his response was, and
I
quote:
"That's the biggest crock of horse manure the world ever invented."
He likened this sort of thinking to a person who believes it's
better
to buy a $55 pair of jeans from Fred Meyer than a $12 pair from K
Mart and thinks the jeans are better just because they cost more.
He
said, "The dollar amount has no specific factor on what the quality
of a transmission rebuild is, what matters is who rebuilt it, and
where the torque converter came from."
He said his shop does five times the volume of the chain
transmission
shop I talked to, that he has over $200,000 of inventory in his
warehouse, and he gets his transmission parts cheap because of the
volume he deals with, and then he passes this savings on to his
customer.
He rattled off a list of the parts they install when doing a rebuild
(my invoice just says: A43D Transmission custom remanufactured w/
rebuilt converter and 8 qts ATF fluid, plus a rear U-joint
installed)
and here are a few of the things I caught: friction seal clutches,
bearings, seals, torque converter, and any hard parts that show
wear. He said they try to rebuild it so it's at least as good as
the
original, and seemed to take it personally that someone would
suggest
his shop's transmission rebuild might not be a better job than
AAMCO. I think this guy knows his business, and he was kind enough
to share some suggestions for preserving the transmission in
general,
which I thought I'd pass on to you all:
I don't have all his exact words, and I might get some of this
wrong--
he was talking fast because he had customers waiting. I tried to
take
notes on it all and I know I missed some of it (anyone who notices
errors, please correct me if I mistranslated his words, or add to
this if you know more details), but here's what he said about
transmission failures, roughly:
He said the primary cause of transmission failures happens when the
rear seal external housing bushing fails and takes the support out
of
the back of the transmission. The rear bushing is critical because
it supports the drive shaft. When this bushing goes, so does the
transmission.
He explained that if the bushing goes, the drive shaft will start to
move up and down and you don't want that, that it pulls the whole
transmission apart and causes the fluids to leak out and blows the
transmission eventually.
He advised me to have the bushing checked every time the oil is
changed, that you need to keep an eye on it since it's key to the
life of the transmission.
He then gave some general advice for how to preserve the
transmission
on these rigs:
1) Don't run it in Overdrive all the time. He said people want to
get good gas mileage and not make the cars behind them angry, so
they
lug it along in OD and this burns out the transmission (drive
shaft?).
He advised me to do what I could to keep the RPMs at about 2500,
that
too many people will lug it along at 1200 RPM at 40 miles an hour,
and this will destroy the transmission. In order to avoid this
problem, he said to downshift to whatever gear to keep the rig from
lugging.
2) Don't use the transmission as a brake. When going down a
mountain, put the load on the brakes (as Click and Clack say, it's
cheaper to replace brakes than it is to rebuild a transmission). He
said it's allright to downshift a little, but to put most of the
braking load on the brakes.
3) When going uphill, never put the gas pedal to the floor. He
advised a 7/8 throttle (does this mean only put the pedal to the
floor 7/8 of the way?), and to downshift to avoid lugging it.
I asked why not put the pedal to the floor and he said when you do
this the pressure regulator valve goes to maximum and this boosts
the
line pressure to the max, which cuts the lube oil and fluid when you
need it most. This causes overheating when going up a mountain, and
eventual transmission failure.
His advice was to let people behind you fume, and pull out when you
need to, but don't floor it just to keep other people from getting
impatient.
I hope this information will be of help/interest to listmembers.
best,
Rosannah
Rosannah.
Great stuff for our Archive. I have always suspected
that staying out of OD and running at around the peak
of our torque curve (2600-2800rpm) was where we wanted to
be while going up hills. Hearing it from the trans man
confirms it.
You are a real asset to our list. Thanks for the follow
up.
Jack A2
PS. I'll get back on the header stuff. Your friend
is right, on the improvement.
