'91 Stuck in Reverse
 

My 1991 is stuck in reverse but my stick shift is free... not sure how this happened. Any suggestions on what/where to look at to see if linkages are broken or what should be examined first?

This happened when my clutch pedal bracket busted at the corner from fatigue.
Working on a welded/ modified bracket and putting it in first. I cant imagine that it will fix my simultaneous stuck-in-reverse problem though.....

Take apart your interior around the shifter. There will be 4 bolts holding in the shifter to the tranny, take those off and see what is going on.

already did. everything is good there. bushing is fine

Maybe the sychros are shot? :shrug:
Have you drained the oil and refilled? If so, how did the oil look?

i found a forum that helped me figure it out. when these 4runners get stuck in reverse due to getting jarred or a sudden stop then you can manually move them out of gear by pulling the reverse light switch off the passenger side of the transmission and pushing the rods backwards. I did this and it freed up my gears.

5 speed stuck in reverse - Pirate4x4.Com : 4x4 and Off-Road Forum

"Anyways here's the break down, the 5th gear is heavy enough to "fall" and knock the tranny into reverse, with that the shifter is still in the (N) position therefor your not able to shift out of (R). So what you have to do is remove the (R) light plug on the side of the tranny *(Passenger side)* and in there with some small needle nose pliers you will see a metal tab, grab onto it and move it "back" *(towards the rear of the tranny)* till it can't move any further."

Interesting.

I don't understand how the shifter can be returned back to neutral if the gear is stuck in reverse.

or, was the shifter also stuck in reverse?

my nephew had a trans lock up in 4th gear. we pulled it apart, and found the shift detents had been installed incorrectly. we fixed it, and put it back together. it was fine, for a few months then it locked up again.

not sure why that time. I sold him a different transmission and he swapped it out.

I was really baffled by this too. My stick was completely free and the gear was stuck in reverse. I could move my stick around but I couldn't move it into any gear positions, it was the strangest thing. I did all sorts of things to try and "free up" my transmission, but manually pushing it back after removing the reverse light indicator was the only thing that worked.

Thinking back on it now, I remember that it happened when I killed my engine while I was moving backwards in reverse. I had to kill my engine because my clutch bracket is busted and the only effective way of stopping the vehicle was to turn if off ....so that I wouldn't run into the parked cars behind me. Then when I tried to put it into first gear after killing the engine I realized that my stick was not going into any gears... so I tried to wrestle it into gear for awhile thinking that it wouldn't go into gear because my clutch wasn't getting full stroke because the broken clutch bracket was flexing off the firewall. I then started the engine thinking that the transmission was in neutral and it immediately started moving backwards in reverse much to my surprise and horror. I immediately killed the engine.... and then I struggled with it for hours. Finally I wedged my broken clutch bracket to where I could push my clutch in enough to where I was not longer engaging my reverse gear... and then my friends pushed me into my garage. I then discovered the above posted forum (5 weeks later) and after reading it I was able to free my transmission from reverse.

so now I'm going to carry a crescent wrench and needle nose pliers in my 4runner at all times in case it happens again.... along with the rest of my usual tools

How exactly did you do it because my pickup got stuck in reverse but shifter on neutral 2 days ago while reversing and my engine died.. 04/06/19