4th gear grind

What up y'all. Long time reader first time poster. I've seen a lot about 2nd gear grinds when cold or when shifting slow but I'm having a problem with my 4th gear not catching in my 03 5-speed. I'm also noticing that it can just pop right out of 4th gear while accelerating and none of my other gears in any of my other cars did that. It happens both when its warm or at start up (its never actually "cold" here) and the shifter almost seems a little loose in 2nd and 4th.

Is there an adjustment that might help? Or are my synchros toast?

I'm about to do an oil change and I was thinking of getting some Redline MTL for the tranny and rear end while I was under there. I believe that will help but I'm afraid this might be a bigger issue. The truck only has 66k on it and thats mostly highway from the last 3 years.

Help.

 

I just changed it, drove it a little I'll see how it works and report back.

 

Well, its been about a week after I changed the fluids and my 4th gear is basically gone the way of the buffalo. I double clutched and got it to catch yesterday but it just went grumble-grumble crunch-grind and slowly came right back out again as soon as I accelerated. My second gear is starting to go as well now, I'm noticing it mostly when I turn or prepare to turn.

I want to explore all possible options other than the synchros as they'd be the biggest problem to fix, are there any other logical possibilities? I had something similar happen on a VW back in the day and it was misdiagnosed as synchros and turned out to be a bad shifter linkage so when they put the new(er) tranny in the bad shifter took that one out as well.

Was this truck just really beaten all to hell by its previous owner? I've been driving stick for 10 years and over 150k miles so I don't think its me.

HELP!

 

I should also mention something I forgot, when I'm in 4th with the clutch pedal pressed to the floor I'm still getting a grind, its a bit louder and harder of a grind then when I start to let the clutch out almost more of a crunch. That sound worries me a lot.

 

I'm just running standard Toyota gear lube, I was going to go with Redline but I didn't want to drop $40 on fluids if its a much bigger problem that fluids wouldn't solve.

 

I'm going to take a stab at the shifter bushing on my day off this week, where exactly is it? The only reference I have for working on this vehicle is a Haynes manual *cough* worthless *cough* and in it they show how to remove the shifter (pg. 7A-3) but they make no mention of the bushing, could it be the round cylinder-ish looking thing below the dust cover? Anybody got any pics or a general description? Also, would my local toyota dealer have it in stock?

Thanks y'all.

 

Thanks, picked up the plastic bushing things today. I hope this works.

 

Jeebus. I've been trying to get my shifter out for the last hour and a half. The spring loaded mechanism that holds the shifter is place is the suck. I can get it to move maybe 1/8th of an inch. I'm a big dude and I'm leaning on this thing, pressing with everything I have and its just sitting there laughing at me.

Anybody got any tricks? I'm doing the vice grip thing but turning it ain't the problem, pressing it is.

 

Its weird how you can try a hundred different methods of doing the same thing for hours on end then take a break, have a sammich, walk out and get it on your first try like its your job. The cap on the end of the shifter was fine, the little green ring/seal thing was pulverized and I managed to not drop any bits into the tranny when I removed the old one. Yay me, everything works fine now.

Thanks everybody . ... and they say the internet is only good for spreading rumors and looking at porn.

 

i know what happened to it LOL...actually not funny. you never know what the first owner did...

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/4-cylinder/62031-clutchless-shifting-manual-2001-tacoma.html

 

Very cool. Glad it ended on a good note!

the story was gripping til the end,,,, i was praying for you and your trans.