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Speaking of super fun practical cars... It looks like I will be learning how to rebuild a U151F automatic transmission from my Sienna van.  It was working better after cleaning the valve body but still has problems when it gets hot.  It just seems to totally disengage.  When cold it actually works pretty good.  Too much fluid leaking around spools in the valve body?  I have no idea but I am going to take it out and disassembly, I found FSM documentation of the disassembly/assembly procedure and specs for clutch pack clearances so it can't be that hard...

 

No matter what I won't really trust it not to leave my wife stranded until I fix it properly.  I tried the easy stuff already (Lucas trans doctor) and the medium stuff (take the valve body apart and clean it).

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Probably about 6 cans worth of snorting.  It appears that it is possible to get it out without dropping the cradle/engine/trans assembly together but it looks easier to drop it all together.

 

To take this in a different direction it appears that an e153 transmission used in Camry's bolts to the 3mz engine...  Cross referencing axle shafts it appears that the splines are the same and the dimensions are almost identical between Auto and manual transmissions.  And the splines and critical dimensions of the 2nd gen Sienna driveshafts are the same, just the outboard part is longer because the vehicles got wider.  So that would lead me at this point to think I could use my existing axle shafts.  I need to do a little more research on that but it doesn't appear to kill the idea.

Other problems I am not worried about: routing shifter cables, fabricate shifter in the console, clutch pedal and master cylinder.

 

Problems I AM worried about: ECU freaking out with no auto transmission.  I have seen solutions (none in a sienna) ranging from ground a certain pin, presumably telling the ECU that the transmission is in neutral, to using a 1MZ ECU/electronics/intake manifold (that loses the VVTi)  I saw some swaps of the 3MZ and e153 transmission into MR2s which would be pretty awesome.

 

Why would I manual swap a Sienna?  I am crazy.  

 

This van is an '04 with 172k, I got it for $2200 because the transmission didn't work.  It's an XLE Limited with every option including AWD which would be lost but I don't care about that.

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