Ratio change in my E153 in my Mk1

[cmuxx]

For anyone who might be interested, I am changing the final drive in my E153 LSD, since Paul installed the 1MZ SC into my car the only real bug is having a redundant 1st and third and buzzing the life out of the motor thereby not realising anywhere near the full potential of the engine.
I know that the shaft and diff gear are available in the States but as I had found out a while ago the oil pump drive gear is a discontinued part and impossible to get new. This is where Marc came to my rescue.
He warned me from the very outset what the problems might be using a salvaged box might be. So anyway we went ahead, he very kindly sourced another transmission from a breakers stripped it for the parts I needed and found that our worst fears were realised, however we were able to use the oil pump drive gear he managed a fair refund and purchased a new shaft and gear, plus a new uprated clutch, some seals and a repair gasket kit packed it all up for me and sent it off.
I couldn't believe the speed it got to me, sent on Friday I had it in my hands before midday Monday!
Marc has told me that he has done a few of these swaps so it was all doable.
Marc supplied me with a useful link.. mr2oc.com that has a helpful factory service manual and after that the rest has been pretty straight forward, box out and stripped pressed off the gears on the output shaft as per the manual and all that rebuilt in a short time. The bearings were about as good as I would want to put back but one of the diff carrier bearings was definatly not reusable so that prompted me to change them all and be done with it, just now I'm stalled on a mainshaft bearing waiting for it to arrive probably after the bank holiday but so far all is good.
The factory original bearings are hideously expensive and you can't get away from that in one or two cases but the good news is it is possible to match up some with your local bearing supplier.
I have added a few pictures to show the shaft kit and I hope by the end of next week it will be all up and running.
At the end of this I hope it will help anyone else thinking of doing the same swap. I will comment further as things progress.

A big thank you to Marc for all his help which has made everything possible.

I am still looking for a cable speedo drive if any one has one.


http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/af30/cmux/gearset.jpg

This is the new gear set all shiney and new

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/af30/cmux/shaft.jpg

Showing the difference in diameter, the right larger one the new shaft

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/af30/cmux/shaftpair.jpg

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/af30/cmux/oilgears.jpg

The oil pump drive gears again the right hand one is the replacement

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/af30/cmux/openbox.jpg

The open box

[Diesel Meister]

Nice. I think the E153 FD is a touch low, especially in V6 applications. I 'll see how I get on (and I'm not likely to be spannering for myself!) but I expect there'll be a longer FD somewhere in my future. Maybe after my bankruptcy hearing :icon_lol:

[cmuxx]

Some update pictures of my ratio change, the box is back in the car but not ready to try yet.

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/af30/cmux/DSC02919.jpg

The box going back together after reseeting the diff and output shaft preload

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/af30/cmux/DSC02921.jpg

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/af30/cmux/29042010266.jpg

The new flywheel fitted with a spacer and the bolt heads shaved off to clear the clutch plate springs as they come really close.

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/af30/cmux/29042010267-1.jpg
The clutch supplied by Marc fitted

[adamh]

excellent work. what do you mean by having a redundant 1st and third?. i understand 5th gear is a bit too high but thought the first couple of gears were o.k. i did also think that these things had enough torque to have a longer first gear aswell, i am interested to hear about the result!. are you making the primary gears longer?

[antnkel]

I'd be interested to see the results as well:eusa_angel:

[cmuxx]

excellent work. what do you mean by having a redundant 1st and third?.

1st gear just moved the car forward about ten feet and it was ready to change again. the same with third, there is so much torque the engine easily carried the missed gears.
All gears will be raised to where they should be as essentially it is a standard camry gearing, 5th gear is way too low and It's buzzing the life out of the motor. Fuel consumption will be improved too.

[cmuxx]

PERFECT..
I took it for it's mot and was taking it easy and In my opinion the gearing is now spot on. All the gears are really well spaced and the annoying gearing issues have all gone, There is no problem with top gear running out of steam the motor pulls it very strongly, it has tranformed the car, and has been well worth all the effort. I absolutly reccomend this modification if you really want to enjoy the V6 experience fully.
I haven't booted it in the lower gears yet because I want the gears to run in for a bit. but I'm sure acceleration will not have been diminished, and anyway there's always 3.9 if you would prefer something in between.
Thanks for all the help Marc, I could not have done it without.

[Gouky]

no problem, i'm glad it worked out well for you

[aigochamaloh]

This is very interesting. I too find first almost useless. This motor makes enough torque that I can go from 20 mph to the gear limited 130 mph or so in 5th gear alone.

[Diesel Meister]

Excellent thread - TB spirit wins again :thumbsup:

I'm still thinking a 3.9 would be ideal for me, so I'm thinking of costing a rebuild on this basis once I've tried out the 4.2, if only to take full advatage of the plentiful torque.

[snowtigger]

Prices would be nice to factor in how much it may cost, what does the 3.9 need for the swop as well?

[Diesel Meister]

I think the bits required for the 3.9 FD can be sourced from Toyota UK - iirc the TB price was circa £400inc. VAT for all the bits but I'd need to check. Of course, you could spend the same again or more on a rebuild, especialy if any extras are required (e.g. refurb, fancy diff).

It may yet come in cheper than adaptign a 6 speed, particularly if you want an LSD. I don't know yet though -depends on Marc's progress and any other community innovations, heh.

[cmuxx]

Prices would be nice to factor in how much it may cost, what does the 3.9 need for the swop as well?

I have already mentioned that I could not have done this without Marc's kind help.
He sourced a box from a breaker and stripped it and found that the gears inside were duff, (He did warn me) however the unobtainable oil pump drive gear was in good shape, so he was then able to get a new output shaft and diff ring gear.
These are the rough Costs:
Doner box....................................$250
ring gear and outputshaft...............$500
miscellaneous cost'bits seals transport US ect....can't remember.
Priority dhl.................................... £150
Customs duty & VAT.......................£110
I will also add that Marc also sorted out a clutch set that is exactly right for the job as the ordinary mr2 turbo clutch was not up to the job.
I'm sure that if a decent doner box could be found the cost would be reduced, but they are really hard to find these days and getting harder and as Marc says likely to be high milage and knacked. I understand they only made this box for the manual V6 for 18 months.
I hope this helps anyone thinking of doing the same.
Expensive? Yes.
Worth it? Absolutley.
Change it? Never.

The 3.9 will be exactly the same process, I have no idea of cost but I'm told the 3.9 gears are already here in the ST165 box and so I would imagine really cheap.

[cmuxx]

Just a bit of an update on this, My girlfriend and I went to Italy in this last month on our hols and it all performed faultlessly gearing was perfect on the French motorways and just right on the windey switch back mountain roads. the car just munched up the miles breezing along with heaps of power to overtake when required, also fuel consumption has pretty well halved, but to be fair I have to add that I removed the SC because it is not just a matter of bolting it on, there are a few little issues (weak AFR) that have to be ironed out with it before I take the car so far from home. We came back from the Italian border to UK in one hit on the way back (about 800 miles) and it was a nice relaxed whizz northwards, (it's really hard to spot some of those radar traps),
One thing I did find was that the engine fault light used to come on for no obvious reason but when on the continent it didn't after a while, I thought that the fuel smelled a bit different there so I thought that might it might'v been that their fuel is different to ours. could be wrong but the light didn't come on till we got back to UK.