Toyota Tacoma Grinding gears and popping out of gear

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reckedracing

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Recent maintenance issue I ran into. Throwing it up here in case any of you guys run Toyotas.
The tacomas and 4-runners with manual transmissions experience a worn out shifter seal over time that will result in sloppy shifts, eventually leading to grinding going into gear and popping out of gear for no apparent reason.
My truck is a 2003 with a straight 4 2.7L, 4wd with sub90k miles. I experienced grinding and popping with 4th gear, and then difficulty going into 3rd. Most people have issues with 1st and 2nd.
The shifter seal sits below the shifter ball in the top of the transmission. It degrades over time which alters the shifter pivot point. Its purposes is similar to shifter bushings on a FWD honda.
Bought the seal for $12 bucks and the truck shifts smooth and easy again.
Commonly misdiagnosed as bad syncros or play on transmission shafts.
People typically do the shifter end cap and shifter seal at the same time. I bought the dorman kit. My shifter end cap looked and felt pretty solid. I did manage to finally get it off the end of the shifter, and it proceeded to fly across my basement and hide. I tried to install the shifter cap included with the Dorman kit, and it appeared to small and ultimately cracked down the side when installed with a moderate degree of force, so I spent 20 minutes finding the OE cap and reinstalling with that for now.

Here is a great write up on it.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Toyota-Tacoma-manual-transmission-pop-out-of-gear/
 
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Just found this post from 2016.
Update, sold the truck in Dec 2018 and never had another issue with the truck popping out of gear.
 
Purchased around Dec2011? for about $11k if my memory serves correctly. About 70k miles.
Toyota put a new frame in 2012.
Sold about Dec 2018 with about 99k miles for $7k. (Plus an accident on the title and new bedside, rim, rear bumper, D mirror, front bumper valence.)
 
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