My tranny wont stay in 1st

[Sluice Box Hero]

heres the deal.

i just put the 5 speed in and it is awesome except for one thing, it wont stay in 1st gear for the life of it.  every other gear works great, but 1st is iffy.  ok, i put it into gear, then i have to lean on it with all my weight and take off real real slow and gental if i want it to stay in gear, BUT, once its in there and i have the clutch all the way, and im moving down the raod i can let go if the stick and it will stay in 1st gear just fine.  i have replaced the shifter seat and cup.  i just got it in there, so i really dont want to have to take it back out .  does anyone know what could be wrong with the tranny?  and if you do, what do i do to fix it spending the least amount of money and still doing it right.  i can, and will remove the tranny againg if i have to, it wasnt that difficut to do, just a pain when you are doing it by yourself.

Callen

[sno runner]

I had the same problem, jumping out of 1st is a notorious problem with toyota tranies. Although I'm not a trany expert my mechanic replaced a bushing underneath the shifter ( if you have a R150f trany the stealer part # is 33548-31010 cost is less than $20. you can see I've done my homework, actually I have the invoice in front of me) This problem can be done with out taking the trany out, just removing the four bolts holding the shifter in the trany. Anyway that wasn't my problem, in my case when I had the trany rebuilt the 1st time the shop left out what the mechanic described as a spring and checkball that locks the shifter into first gear. If I had to take a stab at your ? replace the bushing first, and if its not that take the trany out and let a shop do it, cause warranty is good thing.
Hope that helps
Remo

[Sluice Box Hero]

what do you all think a shop would charge to go through mine?  im going to replace the entire top plate with one from a newer tranny, mine is all worn out and i think it will make it much better.

keep em comin!!

Callen

[Marlin]

Callen, what transmission do you have?
Is it a side or top shifter?

Marlin

[sno runner]

to have the bushing replaced was 20. and 1 hour min of shop time, which should roughly be 75. to 100. bucks, not too expensive, but in my case that was not my problem. My problem was the pull the trany and take apart prob, wich ended up costing me $900. Californian $'s .You can also get a rebuilt from Marlin for roughly the same.
Good luck with the trany
Remo

[sno runner]

Yeah, actually it would be a good ? to know what trany you have first. Everything I was describing was out of a 95 4 runner 5 sp with a r150f trans.
Remo

[Sluice Box Hero]

i have the G54 and a forward shift t/case.  there is no was i will ever spend $900 on anything on this truck.  if all else fails i will find another used tranny and slap it in there. . .$150-200 tops and be done with it.

both the tranny and xcase have brand new fluid.  i will be calling marlin tomorrow afternoon if switching out the top plate and the shifter and the shifter seat do not make a differnece.

if all else fails ill just find another one fore like $150 and call it good and sell this one fore lile $50 as remains.  ill be asking tomorrow at the junk yard, but i have a feeling that they think this yoda stuff is gold plated.

Callen

[BLACKDOG]

  just drive it and learn to deal with it?? I Replaced the bushing and it worked for a while, but then it started doing the same thing.  I have to hol the shifter in 1st and third whenever I depress the clutch, but as long as I am moving under power, they will stay in there.  It was irritating at first, but I got used to it and now it is second nature.  I found out it would cost like 750 to go through mine to see if that spring was missing that snorunner is talking about, so I said screw it and kept driving.  I really dont think it'll hurt it Hasnt done anything to mine and it has been almost a year.  just my