Problems shifting gears 01 tacoma

Hey guys! I have an 01 tacoma 4x4 with the 2.7L 4 cyl. & 5-spd trans. I just replaced the slave cylinder, the clutch master cylinder, & the shift lever bushings. Still, after these repairs, I'm still having troubles getting it into gears at low rpms. With the truck turned off, it goes into gear easily. When running, it is very difficult to get it into 1st gear or reverse, and then once moving, hard to get into 2nd. Also, it just recently started to be a problem going from 5th to 4th. The truck has 298,000 miles on it and I'm not sure if the clutch has ever been replaced. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

Check the lever that is pushed by slave. This one failed on me by developing a crack so it was bending instead of pushing the clutch.

That is 25 dollars or so part but in order to replace it, you would have to do full clutch job anyway.

 

Ok thanks for the advice. Never known anyone to have that issue. I'll be sure to check that out. I knew getting on one of these forums would be a good idea.

 

Checking it is as easy as have someone for you pressing the clutch pedal while you looking under the truck. The lever is easy visible - it has a boot you can slide to see it.

Some night going back home from the airport about 15 miles from home I found it is more and more difficult to change gears. On the last traffic light just before I was going to enter my neighborhood I couldn't change gears at all. I stopped on the red light by turning the engine off. I put 1st gear and on green I started the engine while on the gear. The truck started rolling and on the 1st gear I limped to my house. Good it was night so not much traffic and I did not need to stop anymore.

Lucky me, the local dealer had the lever in stock so the next day the tow truck took my Tacoma to the shop for the clutch job. That was the first time ever my Tacoma was no the tow truck (besides being delivered to the dealer of course). The second and the last time when my Tacoma sat on the tow truck was when it was loaded into shipping container for oversees travel to Poland.

 

This happened to me twice. The first time, I changed the MT fluid and bushing. Shifted smoothly. The seconde time, I needed a new clutch. I was still on my original clutch at over 260k miles.

 

Did you use oem slave and master? Did you bleed them correctly?