Celica Forums General Discussion Exterior My transaxle took a dive on me on saturday

just as the title implies.

It completely broke down on saturday afternoon. Pulled the tranny out saturday night(only took 3 hours this time) and cracked the case open sunday morning.

the final drive gear had about 12-15 teeth sheered off, in addition to the recduction gear had half the teeth sheered off.

good by to tranny. There was metal chunks everywhere. Good thing fernando still had the spare tranny at his house and we reused the gear set from the 2000 tranny.

apparantly I'm the first 2002 gts tranny conversion to 2000 gates.

the 2000-2002 swap wont work because the cables are different lengths, but the 2002-2000 swap will work.

we couldn't pull out the select shafts with out pulling of 5th and 6th gear and with out a puller set we were kinda screwed.

so we just prayed the 2000 gates would work with the 2002 cables...and it did.

as of now I'm LSD less, i'm taking it to kaaz to look at it and make sure there aren't any metal shavings or chips in the clutch packs, and I need to swap the final drive gear to the good one once I know the lsd is okay.

How'd it happen. I believe it was the solid mounts and the b/f goodrich drag radials + LSD that did my tranny in.

with all that torque not spinning the wheels the power had to be loaded somewhere and the mounts weren't taking the brunt of the force, so it all got transferred to the LSD/tranny.

I believe at carlsbad I may have sheered a tooth or two off and it finally went on saturday.

so If there are any polyurethane mount owners out there BEWARE. it puts a lot of strain on the gear set of the tranny when the mounts dont absorb the torque of the motor.

I'd take it out and put the stocker back on--for the people who had theirs filled you can simply remove the polyurethane from the front mount with a simple flat head screw driver.

it took another 3 hours to get the transaxle back into the car and get the axles connected and all bolted up.

which with out a lift and power tools is pretty impressive.

thanks fernando for your help once again. good luck to the owners out there with solid mounts and filled ones.

-J

YOUCH!

This is why I don't like 1/4 mile, it's so brutal on the car

that sux you wont have LSD for awhile.

Didn't think that filled mounts would do that. I'm filling mine tonight and they go on this weekend. I think if anything it was the lsd with drag radials. I have not heard of anyone loosing a tranny with mounts alone. If anyone actually has then please add some info.

Whoaa it sucks!! Good luck having it fixed and all in place like LSD ..

good luck bro, that blows!

That's just bad luck! Hope you get it fixed!

I do not think your mounts would have caused that. The torque applied to your drivetrain will be limited by traction on the tires anyway. My guess is that repeated hard launches caused it. Driveshafts can break anytime you know.

Anyway I wish you luck! When you get that fixed why not drop in a performance clutch? That could bring you well into the 13's.

my tranny is fixed?? i said that in the first post.

also the mounts were a contributing factor in the failure of my tranny, heres a good example from boosted2.0 on ncorg...

Speaking from a strictly Physics based point of view, I think that its actually very safe to assume that the solid mounts were directly related to the failure. Illusive has said that the last compound he used was substantially more solid than the ones he used previously. Keep that in mind.

Now go get a pencil and hold it by the eraser. Press down on the pencil with your finger and the eraser bends. Press harder, it bends more. Now grab the pencil on the wood by metal eraser holder and do the same thing. You can easily feel that there is a HUGE difference in the pressure being applied to the shaft of the pencil, and if you apply too much or too quickly it will snap.

Elastomeric compounds absorb stress and shock in the drivetrain and allow those forces to dissipate through partial movement of the engine assembly. Those forces would otherwise be applied to the gears. Its just like what the eraser did on that pencil. Remove that shock dampener and not only do the gears take a bit more strain, they start taking a LOT of impact shocks like from wheel hop. Mind you they might not have caused the failure by themselves, but they certainly cause added vibration, shock, fatigue and INCREASE the CHANCES of stress related failures such as gear teeth sheering or case or mount bracket breaking.

Remember - energy can neither be created nor destroyed. If you apply a great amount of torque from the engine then that torque has to be relieved by either wheel slip, clutch slip, engine & transaxle assembly movement, or vehicle movement. If these things combined cannot dissipate the applied energy, then something will break or bend. This becomes more true when the wheels hop or slip and grip suddenly.
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I also already have a aftermarket clutch TRD usa

on the older celicas 6th and 5th gen non turbo we used to fill the mounts, sometimes even with epoxy(mixed to allow it to be slightly flexible)with the addition of a performance clutch(i always recomended the act 6 or 4 puck)a lot of the transaxles failed!ironically,some of the best 60ft i saw was when they failed! so,as what was stated above,if you launch with good tires and you hook really hard with solid mounts and you have a good clutch,something might give and it will be the weekest in the chain.i have seen both transaxle and mounts destroyed at the same time!(front mount)ps;the nissan pulsar have a tendency to cut the shafts when solid mounts are used.