Whats going on in my truck?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mopar Muscle
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Mopar Muscle

Mopar Muscle

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I drive an '86 Toyota pickup. The other night, i was driving home late on a big empty street, stopped at a light, I thought to myself, "I wonder how long it will take me to get to 100 mph" so, i set my stopwatch and on green I went pedal to the floor. After I hit about 80mph, it started to lag and it didn't shift into the next gear. I'm pretty sure i have a five gear tranny, and I have gotten it up to 100 on the freeway before.

I wasn't in top gear and it wouldn't shift when I was giving it more gas. My truck doesn't have a tacometer, to I con't see wahts going on with the rpm's.

Any thoughts?
 
Are you really sure about having a five speed transmission? Even a lot of modern cars don't have five speed autos, I'd be fairly surprised to find that an '86 toyota truck has one.

Were you going uphill? Or downhill on the 100mph run?
 
You more then likely have a 4 or 3 speed auto with overdrive as most automatics do.

There are several reasons why it may not be able to reach 100mph.

1). What type of engine? I4, V6? And how many miles?
2). What kind of pick-up? Is it a Taco?
3). The limiter may be kicking in, hell my Blazer won't do 100 due to the limiter.
4). Try taking you foot off the gas for a second to let the computer do its job, you're overloading it.

If nothing else maybe your truck is just tell you not to do anything stupid.
 
There are several possibilities and they all revolve around your tranny. Older vehicles dont like getting stomped on. Espcially ones that dont get it very often. W/ any luck you broke some linkage or possibly worse. Raggin on your everyday vehicle for a rush is a good way to wind up walking. If your mechanically inclined, I suggest you take a look under there. Check your dipstick for tranny shavings. Its always a tell-tale sign of gears shredding. If you dont think you can do it, take it to a shop. W/ any luck you wont get overcharged.
James-
 
Thanks for the replies guys, now that I look at it, I have four gears. The engine is a 'I4 22R,' the same motor Toyaota put in the late 80's Celicas. It has 175,000 miles on it and still runing strong. I usually go easy on the throttle, the poor old beast has been around almost 30 years. But every once in a whyle I do a few donuts or give it a speed run.
 
Actually 22-R is the motor used on the Celica (I'm a big time MA/RA/TA-JZA-AE fan) from 1982-84. In 1985 they changed a few parts and dubbed it '22-RE'. The pickup stuck with the regular 'R' until like '88 or so. I don't know the differences but my guess is you might be low on ATF fluid. From my experience cars without enough ATF fluid don't like to shift. It's a shame you're not that good at cars because even if I told you to 'judge the redline' by listening to engine pitch (it's 4,800 by the way) you probably wouldn't understand :indiff:

Take it to a Toyota joint you can trust, and consider getting a tachometer-equipped dash installed.
 
Your problem is like mine, you have a 3 speed with overdrive, the trans won't shift into 4th with the throttle wide open, thus you probably redlined in 3rd(my 323 does this at around 100mph, and I have gone 102(yes, into the redline). Fortunately for you, you have enough power that when driving down the highway in 4th your truck can still do 100 without going flat out(I bet my 323 could but I haven't tried it, yet).

I'd suggest you go to a junkyard and find a similar Toyota truck with the gauge cluster that has the tach, and check the wireing. You might end up in a situation where you can merely install the gauge cluster with tach and it'll work. Worked for me and a friend with a '86 Camry.
 
Victor Vance
It's a shame you're not that good at cars because even if I told you to 'judge the redline' by listening to engine pitch (it's 4,800 by the way) you probably wouldn't understand :indiff:
Click to expand...

How do you know what redline sounds like unless you have a tach? 4800rpm sounds different in different cars.
 
Right... but most engines make a similar sound at certain rpm's. I'm not questioning your logic... you're right, but most single, twin, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, and 12 cylinder, twin and 4 rotor engines all make a general sound at certain revs. If you've worked with a lot of cars and watch the tach, you can guess the revs to within 500 RPM's. Plus... if you're real good, you can also judge the firing rate. (i.e., listen to a harley go puga-puga puga-puga at idle, each 'puga-ouga' is a fire) You can also veel the intensity of the vibration, ect...
 
That's incorrect. You can't say that completely different engines sound alike, it's all a matter of exhaust and stuff. However, you can fairly accurately estimate RPM if you know the redline(the automatic would shift at the redline flat out), hear the engine flat out at the redline, estimate shift speed, and just pay attention. This takes some work to get right, and it's a heck of a lot easier/cooler to just get the gauge cluster that has the tach.
 
MazKid
That's incorrect. You can't say that completely different engines sound alike, it's all a matter of exhaust and stuff. However, you can fairly accurately estimate RPM if you know the redline(the automatic would shift at the redline flat out), hear the engine flat out at the redline, estimate shift speed, and just pay attention. This takes some work to get right, and it's a heck of a lot easier/cooler to just get the gauge cluster that has the tach.
Click to expand...
Err, that wasn't what I meant, I meant, each engine of its kind make thier own specific noise. I guess I forgot the H-4 and H-6 as well.
 
Its easy to tell about where your car or trucks motors running at. Hell I can usally get with in a few hundred rpm or so while driving, but then again I don't really like to push my truck up to 5000 rpm. I let it stay about 2500 to 3000 under acceleration. Plus I can't make it shift whenever I want since GM transmissions are stupid. You can trick them easily.

Any ways I would just let it go, your truck isn't fast and I wouldn't push it to be. You are going to break something pushing it that hard, even in overdrive. You will burn something out.
 
Yeah it's not a good idea to push it very hard, especially something that old. I've already seen the consequences of pushing an '86 motor to the limit, albeit, a 4A-G, but you still wouldn't want that to happen to you.
 

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