For our first week in Transmissions and Drivelines we dismantled a Transaxle Toyota Transmission.

Safety and equipment:

• Safety in the workshop is very important. We required Overalls and steel cap boots in case the Transmission or a component was to fall, our feet would be protected. We required the basic tools like socket set, soft face hammer, circlip pliers, spanners and a few extras such as Feeler gauge and Torque wrench.

What we did:

• The very first thing we did was a Visual inspection on the Transmission. We rotated it checking for any missing parts (ie, bolts, nuts), broken parts or damage to the Transmission itself and noted them down for later reference. We found ours was missing a circlip to hold the 5th gear selector hub in place, and a main bolt that splits the Transmission in half was missing.
• Using the gear lever we went through each gear (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and reverse). Made sure we could select each with ease and none were jammed or crunchy. Reverse was noisy but we found out this is because the reverse gear has Spur cut gears which means the gears are straight cut. Not Helical like 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th which are quieter gears. We ended up locking our Transmission into 5th gear and not being able to select out of it.
• Then following the workbook we took the Transmission apart  made sure to keep all parts we removed together and replace any missing or broken parts for re-installation later on.

Why we did it:

• The visual inspection was carried out to identify any broken/missing part or damage to the Transmission. Which would affect its ability to perform (ie, a missing ball bearing in the fork selector housing would not allow the fork to lock into place and would slip not engaging gear)
• We checked each gear could be selected to help us identify any problems for when we dismantle the Transmission. (ie, if we couldn't select 3rd gear there could be a problem with the fork selector or the selector hub which we would have to fix before re assembling in order to get the Transmission working properly).
• The reason for following the workbook was to make sure we were taking apart the Transmission correctly and not taking any shortcuts. Making sure all parts that were removed were properly put back to ensure the Transmission functions properly. (ie, not putting back a circlip on the 5th gear selector hub would mean it could jump out of place and not lock the gear properly or not lock the gear at all).

Summary:
After pulling our Transmission apart we found that 5th gear fork slipped from the gear lever housing assembly which lead to our Transmission being stuck into gear. We found that all of the internal components were in good working order and the missing parts like circlips were replaced and all our bolts were torqued to the manufactures specs. After re-assembling it our Transmission was no longer stuck in gear and we could select each with ease.