No drive from auto box

Hi,
     A/T Overheat light came on after a long drive.  Left overnight and seemed ok next morning but a mile up the road,  no drive.
Being ignorant of such things, I was stumped but all that was needed was to top up the auto transmission fluid,  through the dipstick pipe, using the tube on the atf bottle.

I'm showing my ignorance here but this is the first auto I've owned in 35 years of motoring and I hadn't needed to touch this in the five years I've had the van.  I'm hoping my embarrassing foolishness will help someone else!

In retrospect,  slow upshifts and reluctance to engage reverse were early warning signs. I should have checked the atf level when I noticed.

Cheers,
             W.

So, you filled up the ATF level and now it is working properly again? Or you still have problems?

Check for any leaks ATF fluid does not evaporate allso check in the cooling system some Toyotas have a oil cooler in the radiator the fluid must have gone somewere

Hiace4wd wrote:

So, you filled up the ATF level and now it is working properly again? Or you still have problems?

Topped up and now sorted, thanks.

Will need to see if can find why it was low  but the main point of posting was to highlight just what an easy "fix" it was to anyone else who might be as ignorant as I was about automatic transmissions!
I'm pretty embarrassed that I got stuck over such an easily resolved problem, and it was just because I simply didn't know what I didn't know... if I'd seen this post anytime in the last five years or so I'd have been fine... or if I had had even a little idea what to do with a "failing" auto box.
I've driven cars with failing clutches and dodgy synchros before, or gearshifts where the actual ratio depended on the phase of the moon, rather than the position of the stick but the only autos have been hire cars...
My dad had an automatic Rover for a while when I was a kid but it had the Leyland straight-six engine that didn't run long enough for the gearbox to break....
My own cars had been manual all the way. So I was clueless.

Cheers,
             W.

Unusual as unless you have a leak there is no way out for the fluid. See JT69's comment. If the ATF mixes with the coolant it's harmless for the cooling system but coolant eats transmissions.

You need the engine running when you check the level - make sure you do this to get it right as it's critical.

As you overheated it you should drain the fluid from the sump and replace that amount with new fluid and then check the level again, also not the colour of the fluid: Pink = good, Brown = Replace more regularly, Black = Bad.

JT69 wrote:

Check for any leaks ATF fluid does not evaporate allso check in the cooling system some Toyotas have a oil cooler in the radiator the fluid must have gone somewere

Hi,
      I've had a closer look, and it seems to me as though I may be losing transmission fluid through a couple of pipes that run in front of the radiator, then into it.
This sounds like the cooler described above... I'm thinking that these pipes probably need to be replaced but they are long and oddly shaped- is it possible to replace them without major work?

Alternatively, is there any reason why only the corroded sections couldn't be replaced? It looks to me as if under a metre of each pipe (between the rubber hose connections to the radiator and the bends that take them around the top of the radiator on the driver's side and back to the rear of the 'box) actually needs changing. Any reason not to do that, in situ?

Thanks,
            W.

You only need to get the fluid to the cooler and back, any high pressure hose will do, if you identify the ends you can even order them from eBay or at least identify places who make them on eBay and run around to a local one.

The alternate is to buy an oil cooler kit that sits in the air, lots are fitted for towing etc - had one fitted on my old Honda auto for towing.

If your auto box is used in other toyotas (it will be) you may be able to buy an off-the-shelf auto cooler kit for it even.

GPW wrote:

You only need to get the fluid to the cooler and back, any high pressure hose will do, if you identify the ends you can even order them from eBay or at least identify places who make them on eBay and run around to a local one.

The alternate is to buy an oil cooler kit that sits in the air, lots are fitted for towing etc - had one fitted on my old Honda auto for towing.

If your auto box is used in other toyotas (it will be) you may be able to buy an off-the-shelf auto cooler kit for it even.

Thanks, GPW. It's getting worse (no surprise there) but my local garage have confirmed that they can just replace the dodgy sections of the pipes. Booked in for next week.

I noticed that there seems to be a solenoid-controlled valve at the transmission end of the pipework- Does anyone know if this is likely to be on the send or return pipe, please?

Seems like this is probably by way of a thermostat, so disconnecting it could potentially take the oil-cooler and its pipework out of the system, as long as it's the send side... if the valve is on the return then presumably the cooler would be pressurised all the time and it would just be the flow that was controlled.

(I'm in Scotland, BTW, and it's winter, so I think transmission cooling is probably not a major concern at the moment..)

Cheers,
            W.

Local garage has now replaced the corroded pipes with extended "rubber" hoses  from the cooler connections at the radiator to the sound lengths of pipe that run back to the transmission.
All looks good so far.  Now, if can just get the back axle sorted...

Cheers,
             W.

Good news!
Not sure what the valve is but they often do have thermostats, probably on the feed side from the cooler to the rad TBH, because a thermostat on the way back would be daft (but didn't stop Porsche doing it on the earlier Boxster/911 996/997 engines (which then suffered from overheating, scored bores etc)).