Post edited 3:30 am – February 5, 2010 by notoriousDUG

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So this is for a Toyota but many transmissions with a internal shifter use the same system and are very close to this so if you have a rig with a sloppy shifter these tips may work for you.

First thing I needed to do on the Toyota was to put the gears on this thing back where they belonged.  A loose shifter made every shift an adventure and the trip into reverse could be a long and disastrous journey.  Basically the shifter flopped around like a limp noodle; this thing was in bad need of help, in the pic below it is in 3^rd gear!

A little bit of research and some knowledge of internally shifted transmissions I ordered up a new shifter socket from Marlin Crawler.  Apparently after one or two hundred thousand miles these things tend to wear out.  The Marlin piece is a harder plastic and should last longer then the original; of course it lasted for 20 some years so beyond the fact I could order it online over going to Toyota I am not sure where the real advantage was…  While ordering I also got myself a new shifter socket, if it’s out I may as well replace it right?

Anyway the new parts:

The bit on the left is the socket, the shifter had a steel ‘ball’ that rides in this socket for smooth, precision shifting.  Of course I missed the pics but basically the shifter body is held down by a cap with a spring under it.  There are two ‘ears’ in the transmission that the groves on the shifter ride in.  These keep in from rotating and give you something to pivot the shifter against when you move the shifter; when you look at the pic of the shifter and then back at the socket it will all make sense, I swear.

After taking it all apart I found myself unable to find the shifter socket, or any piece of it, in the trans, well that probably explains my problem huh?  Well, partially.  There was more wrong, the socket had been worn or gone for so long that the groves in the shifter body and the pins in the trans where completely worn out contributing to the sloppiness of the shifter.  As a solution I welded the groves smaller and then ground them to fit the pins in the trans.  The before and after pics refused to turn out but here is the during pic:

While in there I also changed the socket, it seemed to be a bit worn as well…

End result; I have a shifter with gears in the spot where you would expect them and people behind me when I try to parallel park are cheering.