RA60F stuck in gear

Quick recap of what happened. I was going to replace me tie rods. I put a block up tight behind my rear tires. I reach through the door to pop the truck into neutral so it would tighten up against the block before I jacked it up. It rolled back the very tiniest bit, but when I popped it out of gear it dropped into what I think is 4th. I went to shift it back to into neutral and it’s stuck. I was parked infront of my shop door. I pulled forward after I started it and I could move by slipping the clutch. I shifted to 4lo and drove it in and tore out the shifter. I can move the rail to the pass a side quite a bit, none towards the drivers side. It moves forward a little bit and maybe just enough to say it moves backwards but not a lot. I’ve rocked the hell out of the truck back and forth while manipulating the rail with a pry bar to no avail. I put a chunk of wood against it and tapped it firmly all over as I rocked the truck. I haven’t got mean with it yet and before I started to I wanted to hop on TW and see if anyone had any ideas. Yes I used the search function and saw the earlier 6sp had an issue with a bolt falling out but I don’t think this is the problem. I sent @gearcruncher a PM to see if he had any ideas and now started this thread to see if anyone else might know what to do.

 

That sucks, there's a good chance it's got an internal problem. Either the detent system or shift forks could be messed up

Sorry

 

I’ve been messing with it all afternoon and haven’t made any progress. I guess tomorrow I’ll pull the transmission and see what I can find inside.

 

Talk about escalating quickly.
It went from Tie Rods to Pulling the Transmission.

You sound like you have my kind of luck.
An easy and simple job usually turns into a multi-day job that will require no less than 3 trips to 3 different places to get the job done.

Keep us updated. Good luck.
Hopefully you figure it out before you have to drop the Trans.

 

Any luck ?
This is a common problem with the RA60 usually found on trucks with higher mileage .
Have you pulled any detents out ?
Interlocks prevent 2 gears at the same time
Detents hold the transmission in the gear you have selected .
On older trucks , I have rocked the hell out of the truck by hand while someone sits in the cab and manipulates the shifter with aggression in an effort to get you back to Neutral .
Do you have the FSM for your truck ? I would be removing detents before i ripped the trans out.
If you can manage to get the truck on to dry pavement , you can try accelerating hard and then coast just as hard . This forces the mainshaft inside the transmission to move forward as well as move backwards .

 

I have the top drivers side detent spring out but I can’t get the detent out. I dropped the shifter back in just rocked the hell out wiggling the hell out of it. I’ll push it back out of the shop and take it for a quick spin and see if it will pop out. I did a little beat down drive around the yard last night up and down a little hill trying to load and unload it. I’ll go try the blacktop.

 

No luck on the blacktop. Let the exhaust cool down and ran to town and got a flexible magnet on a stick. Hopefully this does the trick

 

Got my fingers crossed that flex magnet will get the detent out

 

Snagged it out no problem. Still stuck in gear.

 

I believe that spring moves the shifter to the neutral position
There should be other detents on the side of the transmission case that you can remove . Usually an allen key removes them .

 

exactly
I saw a post of this on a facebook group
same thing happened. Guy quickly took his trans apart and found the shift fork(s) popped off inside. He said the bolts holding them on did not get loctited from the factory, so he simply re-installed them with loctite. Not sure if blue or red.

I don't know if I've ever taken a manual trans apart. I took some autos apart.
Judging from that I'm guessing it's layered like a sandwich. And that the middle section will hold the gears/shafts pressed into it with bearings.
That the other sections can be knocked off with a deadblow with bolts removed, and otherwise seals the layers with RTV sealant to prevent gear oil leaks.
I wonder if FSM goes over repair/assembly, or if there's any other resources
on some cars, there's DIY threads, videos, and so on. Not sure about the 2nd gen Tacoma.
There might be for other models with similar concepts that apply given most manual transmissions probably have a similar design.

I don't think detents would cause this. They are typically just a spring loaded ball that helps hold the shift knob in it's pattern position visually.
They're known to go bad on E36 M3's causing where the shift knob is to look a bit off and goofy, but otherwise still driveable

the inconvenience is gonna be a pain because a can of worms has been opened
-rental car
-truck is now down
-takes time to pull trans and repair
-getting a spare trans to swap in if going that route for now, costs additional money. I've seen a few for sale cheap as like $500. At least one of them still might be for sale on CL somewhere given very few people buy them. Which can also be used as leverage to get a better price at a junkyard. Who will probably want a high price because "Famous million dollar indestructible $20k Toyota truck Marty McFly Back To The Future $2500 thats what every other yard has it listed at carpart inventory see look at the computer screen" on an RA60F that's been sitting there collecting dust making them $0 god knows how long, on a shelf somewhere in the back
-could get a different trans like 3rd gen Taco
-potentially paying a shop or trans shop

People who know how to work in transmissions are rare.
Only knew one guy who could break apart an automatic fast and knew what he was doing, guy had 30 years experience.
And a shop that specialized in it, they had high end tools.
Timing belt? No problem. Many people have done at least one. Line up the timing marks. Check the timing.
Transmission work? Internal bearings, springs, gears, shafts, etc. - very few people do it.

pulling it out is the easy part
taking it apart, that I don't know
you could try it yourself, or pay a guy to
or get a fucked up spare, then take that apart as a practice run to get an idea of how it come apart
and basically pray that when you separate a layer of the case that a million springs under tension don't go flying all over the room with no idea what order they go back installed

 

It’s almost in the ground waiting on a buddy to help steady it. I saw that post in the Facebook MT group. His was an early 05-06 mine is a 13’ and supposedly they fixed the problem. Not saying it isn’t the problem but I’m aware. It’s be never cracked a transmission open with a wrench, lol cracked a few in half wheeling when I was younger, but I’ll give it a shot before I take it into some that actually knows what they are doing.

 

Out and on the shop floor now.

 

Something I could use some help in is in worse case scenario some links to places I can source a new to me RA60F there are none in a 3 state radius of me on Craigslist or any listed on EBay. I’m going to start making phone calls in the morning to figure out what road I need to take to get up and running.

 

car-part.com is junkyard inventory
I haven't used any LKQ sites
some junkyards (not all) also list on craigslist and eBay.
searchcraigslist.com searches all craigslists at once

shipping could take some time. Something that heavy usually gets strapped on a pallet and sent via freight/ground.
ForwardAir ships from plane terminals.

u-pull-it's are cheaper. they have u bring tools, remove the part yourself, and carry it. But it's usually old cars and maybe small chance they'd have a 6MT taco

FJ Cruiser trans might fit. Supposedly better 6th gear ratio

 

The FJ .799 6th gear would help out a lot I’m a little over geared with 4.88 and 34’s.

 

Hollander Parts would be another place to check if it comes to that, they list salvage inventories all across the US.

 

Hell yeah! You guys are awesome. Thanks for the info. Most of the stuff I get is off Tw or EBay. The only thing I bought off Craigslist was my slides and after driving 6 hours to Oregon found out the guy is a TW guy and could have sent them north to me.

 

Made some phone calls today. Found a shop that said bring it in and they will take a look inside it. Dropping it off tomorrow morning.

 

OP, I saw your post and the first thing I thought of was shift keys coming out and jamming the shift hub(s). But then I saw that yours is a '13 and it has the improved shift keys, so not an impossible failure now but a little less likely than earlier versions.

Another possibility is one of the cast aluminum shift forks has cracked/bent/broken. ToyMoCo has had to come kicking and screaming to the party of upgrading shift forks from cast aluminum to forged or cast steel and IMHO several of the forks are still a weakness vulnerable to robust shifts.

Please keep us informed of the autopsy. Pics would be a bonus!