My manual shift 92 Toyota (22RE engine) has 134K miles on it and its beginning to slip out of gear (shift knob pops from 1st into neutral).

I did some Google research on this and it turns out this is often caused by a worn shift lever ball seat that is supposedly easily fixed by pulling the shift knob and replacing the seat and shift lever socket.

I was wondering if anyone has tried this and if so how did you manage to get the shift lever retaining cap off?? I'm stuck at this phase as mine will not push down so it can twist off.

This is a picture from the site that explained this fix, but this cap is shown raised and mine is flush with the housing and will not budge:



I read a DIY on this here:

removing the shifter lever retainer cap.

 

i used a pair of snap ring plyers to get mine out. Took 10mins to do the shifter ball and the shifter bushing.

 

Take the shift tower off so you can get better access to the retainer ring. I use 2 flat tip screwdrivers, one in each side of the shift handle to push down and twist it out. Simple stuff.

 

What White Trash said, take off the shift tower so you can access it easier. I used flathead screwdrivers as well and had it off pretty quickly.

 

Success!!!

I got the shift lever cap off using a flat head screwdriver pressing down on one side while I grabbed the other with some needlenose plyers, gripped, then press both down and turn counter clock-wise.

I first tried the 7/8" wrench and it was useless

I took the truck for a spin and had a great big smile on my face from the smooth, positive shifting and zero gear pop-out.

I hope whomever posted that fix with the photos gets some good karma thier way, they deserve it. Thanks for the help ideas guys.

 

Glad you got it. Makes the truck shift like new again. You should post a few pic of the truck up for us to see what you are working on.