The original poster has only 4 posts here; might not get back to you with your Q. You might want to have them at least look up book time for ya.

Hey, I'm back.

Unfortunately I can't give you a very accurate time estimate on the job. I worked on it a couple of hours at a time after work & on the weekends. I would say it took me a solid 16 hours <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/zombie.gif" alt="" />, but since I have a back-up vehicle to commute with I wasn't exactly rushing it!

I still don't have an answer to why this thing cracked, which is obviously disturbing. I did my best to center up the torque converter, i.e. torqued it in two steps in a star pattern. I'd better not have to do it again, because it pretty much sucked.

BTW, I did change my transmission fluid while I was under there. Just drain the pan & fill every 30k miles and you should be fine.

On the above mentioned trucks with more than one cracked flex plate in several years time; I'd have to question the crank shaft thrust bearing. If it is worn beyond limits it could be allowing the flex plate to walk back and forth under various loads; causing undo lateral stresses on the flex plate. On a manual transmission truck you can determine worn crank shaft thrust bearings by watching the crank pulley at idle while somebody presses the clutch in and out. The crank pulley will walk fore and aft as far as the thrust bearing will allow it to.

On an automatic tranny, I do not know of any way to check the crank shaft thrust bearings, short of dropping the oil pan and dropping the thrust bearing for measurement.

Thanks a lot for the reply. The flat bed tow truck took the truck today over to the mechanic. He said it might cost upwards of $600, but we shall see. The good thing about this mechanic is that he is fair. I will let you know how it goes. Having just one car is a little difficult to juggle at home, but hopefully I will get the truck back next week.

I also want to find out why this thing cracked. It makes no sense to me, especially being that I hardly load it except for the occasional load of fire wood.

I hope we figure it out.

Well, my mechanic found the broken flexplate and, seven hours later ($560 just in labor), he was able to change replace it, but now the car does not shift properly. It seems that the transmission is not shifting down to first gear on "D". The only way to get going right now is to turn the shifter to "1" and then move it over to "D" where it takes it the rest of the way. It sounds like something in the trans went. I will keep you posted.

wow....4. I wonder if cryo-treating it would take all the stresses out of the metal and allow flex plates to last much much longer...

Add me to the list of people who has blown through a flex plate. I have a 1999 Toyota Tacoma 3.4L 4X4 auto.I bought it used at 120,000 miles. I noticed a slight knocking in the engine bay but never took it too seriously. After about 17,000 miles and a couple of mud bogging incidents(possibly related) my flexplate went. I was on the highway doing about 2,000 RPM when i noticed a terrible noise, nearly that of a grenade beneath my car.

Obviously after that i couldn't get my car to start. So i towed it to the local mechanic and he confirmed it was a broke flex plate. He said that Toyota does not even mention such a thing happening and that he has never seen it.

As we speak i am having it repaired for $450 + the 200 dollar part. Any suggestions what this might be from? I considered possibly the crank to be somewhat at fault, but then wouldn't i be leaking oil? (which I'm not).

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks