loose shifter in 6spd: need advice!

Ok, so im a little lost here. i have a 2005 trd sport 4x4 with a 6spd manual trans. recently my shifter started having a bunch of play in it. so today i took it to a local car shop here in vegas. they told me that it was a bushing towards the middle of the shift tower. i have read many forums about the bushing at the bottom of the shift tower and that doesn't seem to be the problem. they quoted me $375 for the entire fix which seems ridiculous for just a piece of rubber that failed. my question is... is there any other way to fix this problem or am i just SOL? the dealership said they have never seen this problem before. any help would be great!

below is a picture provided by the dealership of the shifting mechanism, the line represents the part that has failed.

 

There's the shifter ball that snaps onto the end of the shifter and the seat, which the larger ball rides in. Sloppy shifter is gonna be the seat most likely, but while you've got it out might as well just replace both. I just replaced them on my 4runner that had a sloppy shifter. Cost me $25 bucks and takes about 10 minutes to install them both. You can get them here:

http://www.marlincrawler.com/transmission/shifter-parts/heavy-duty-shift-lever-ball-seats

 

Sorry no 6sp here. But found some good info on what I think is your problem. It may not be the bottom bushing but rather the plastic in the rod where it connects to the shifter. Read threw the whole thing... You'll see what I'm talking about

 

i appreciate the help. however, i think i described the problem wrong. it is not the bushing at the very bottom. its the bushing thats located in the shift tower itself. the shift tower is made of 2 pieces and there is another bushing in between the 2 pieces and thats the part that failed. again thanks for the help. if you need any more clarification let me know! thanks.

 

Yeah your pic is tiny could not see it. That's the part they were talking about in the link above.

 

I know what you're talking about now, you might be able to epoxy it or weld it into one piece. All that crap is for is to remove "vibrations".

Don't know if this site is legit, but they price it at 130 bucks if you want to just replace.

http://www.villagetoyotaparts.com/p...SHIFT-FOR-FLOOR-SHIFT/2044045/3353035632.html

 

yea thats the part I'm talking about. i don't have the tools do do any type of welding and idk if epoxy would hold in the long run... the dealer parts mgr quoted me 160 for the part with my military discount so ill probably order from them. do you guys think it would be a tough thing to do by myself? does anyone have any write-ups for this that you know of??

 

Follow this up thru step 7. You don't need to remove the 4 bolts holding the metal housing to the trans, just peel back that little rubber boot and there is a circle clip looking thing with a rectangle hole cut in it. Push that down and turn about 1/4 turn and it will release. It's got a spring behind it so you gotta push down pretty hard. Put the new one in and push the clip down and rotate it back into place.

http://www.gadgetonline.com/shifter.pdf

 

I had the same issue with my '06 6spd. The rubber that connects the two segments of the shifter wears out and it starts getting really sloppy. Mine was actually rattling because the top of the lower section was rattling against the inside of the upper section.

My fix was to pull the whole thing off, completely pull them apart(which was a pain), fill the upper section with epoxy, and then put it back together and let it harden. It pretty much made the dampened 2 section shifter into a solid piece.

It definitely stopped the noise, but I get a lot more vibration coming through the shifter from the transmission now. It makes the shift knob rattle eventually (I've used a couple, and the same thing happens after a while due to the increased vibrations). If I did it all again, I'd just bite the bullet and get a new shift lever.

Just my 2 cents, hope it helps, good luck

Ben

 

thanks for the input. i was thinking about going the epoxy route but it just seems like a hassle pulling that thing apart. would you recommend oem or do you know of any other manufacturers that make a stronger/better shift lever? i think toyota didn't think this through. you shouldn't have to fork out 300 bucks for a rubber bushing that fails... seems kind of stupid imo. thanks again for the help.

 

http://www.xr-underground.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31063

I think he still sells these, you just ship him your old shifter back. He's on this forum too

 

Why not just kills 2 birds with 1 stone and upgrade to a short shifter? Unlike TRD and URD, B&M is a whole shifter replacement.

I actually have the URD version and haven't had any problems with it, but then again, my shifter wasn't loose in the first place. If mine ever breaks, I'd probably go the B&M route

 

It also stops drive line noise from resonating through the shifter rod.

 

What he said. While you've got everything torn down, its a good time to consider an upgrade if you can swing the $$$. Especially if you're looking at $200 in parts already...I think I paid $250-ish through the stealership for mine with a 15% parts discount coupon.

The TRD short shifter is a whole shifter change, btw, or at least it was for 2014.

 

Yep what he said. Just get the TRD short shifter and be done with it. It is a whole replacement for the stock and IIRC they claim a 30% shorter throw.

 

$300 on trdparts4u but can probably find cheaper elsewhere: http://trdparts4u.toyotaofdallas.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=276649

 

good to know on the TRD SS. I guess times have changed since 2007

 

I broke down and bought a new OEM shift lever assembly at the dealer today. They cut me a nice deal and I already have the URD SS kit installed, so it was my only option. Lookin forward to ditching the vibration.

 

trust me I've looked into the TRD SS. bc i think the tacos have a ridiculously long shift motion, even for a truck. but the TRD kit has the same exact style shift tower which could fail again and then I'm out 300 bucks instead of 150... just my thought process. i have looked into the urd as well but i haven't seen a kit that includes a new shift tower... just the one that includes the little square metal piece for lack of a better term. would that be worth the extra bucks? and is it easy enough for a novice mechanic like myself to install??

 

A short shifter with new lever would be ideal if some one made one. I think if it was me I'd go with the TRD SS otherwise your stuck buying a aftm SS plus oem lever.