6spd manual hard shifting

I'm gunna try it out tomorrow anyway, just feels like there's so much slack in the drive train. But I can't move it at all when I try by hand

 

Drive shaft****sorry

 

I just wanted to bump this thread and thank all you guys that posted. The last few months my '05 has been exceedingly difficult to get into 4th and 6th (mostly 4th though) and I could not figure out what the problem was. It's not 100% of the time, just sometimes. I found the threads on changing out differential and trans fluids and got the Redline MT-90 for the trans, but nothing seemed to really help. I was terrified there was going to be a pile of metal shavings when I pulled that drain plug on the trans, I can tell you. I can't nail down an exact RPM to make it easier either, though I try not to push it at higher RPMs unless absolutely necessary.

Reading monkeyface's post on the first page of this thread saying that the trans is notoriously "notchy" was spot on. I cringe every time I pull back so hard into 4th, I think I'm gonna pull the damn shifter lever out of the floor before it does it's double-notch into gear. My truck has only just turned over 80K miles for God's sake. I've driven manual vehicles (including my Harley!) for 30 years and this has been a most unusual truck in my experience.

I was most pleased to come across the "axle wrap" information as well. Maybe that'll make the difference. I'll most definitely be doing something about that once Toyota replaces the rear leafs for me hopefully sometime this summer.

Thanks again you guys!

 

Are you sure your clutch isn't on it's way out? 80,000 is pretty early for a clutch to go out (esp on a Tacoma) but it's not unheard of.

 

I neglected to mention that I had my clutch and throw out bearing replaced last October. I wish I had seen Gearcruncher's excellent thread on the 6-speed tranny and clutch adjustment before I had that done. The throw out bearing was chirping to the point I was going insane back then. The guy said if he was going to fix that, he might as well do the clutch too. Well, it's chirping again (though not all the time), and the hard shifting only started after this work was done. Not sure what else I can do.