I'm an idiot. Quick help with 3rd generation shifter please (automatic).

[TheMightyGoat]

I thought it would be a good idea to try to take the shifter apart to see if I could potentially replace the button, maybe with a resin molded button the way you sometimes see on standards... anyway, on to the point.

I saw that the case of the shifter was only held on with two bolts, so I thought the case would simply slide off once those were out. Well, I took them out and started to slide the case up, and it wouldn't go. Evidently the workings of the button aren't designed to let the case slide up that way. So I put it back down and bolted it together thinking it'd be fine. I started the car and it won't let me depress the button to take it out of park. Although, it apparently got pressed enough to not really be "in" park, because it will not let me take the key out of the ignition either.

So I'm an idiot. Now how can I get this thing apart without screwing it up more to fix whatever isn't in the right place?

Please and thank you.

 

[TheMightyGoat]

I find that if I leave the bolts out and fiddle with the position of the housing on the "stick" I can get the shifter to function normally and move through all the gears. If it's off even slightly, though, the button doesn't depress properly and it will not move through the gears. Every time I find this position and try to hold it there while I re-insert the bolts it never works once the bolts are in. I tried varying the tension on the bolts from just enough to hold them in the threads to as tight as I could make them without stripping them.

I can't believe how stupid there is. There's nothing mechanically wrong with it but I had to fuck around with it and now I can't put two little bolts in correctly. There holes are there... it's not like I have a lot of choice about where to put the bolts. It must be that they need a precise tension in order to hold the shifter housing in the correct place. How can the entire function of the vehicle be dependent on the tension on these two damned bolts?

I think part of the problem may be that there was a toothed washers on each of the bolts. I think they may have been part of the system to hold the bolts at the right point with the right tension. They're squashed now, however, from my experimenting with torque. What an idiot I am.

For now I can drive it with much aggravation by leaving the bolts out and fiddling with the shifter until it moves. If anyone can help I would very much appreciate it.

 

[RamThis]

Nope, you're not an idiot at all. Just hung up on something. I'm a mechanic and I get frustrated from time to time with things as well. Most of the time, if you walk away from it, go work on something else, get your mind straight again, then come back to it, you'll see something you missed in your frustration.

Having said that, I have no personal experience with the shifters in these vehicles so I'm really not going to be any help to you mechanically. Perhaps if you posted some pics of the assembly we could see something that you might have overlooked?

 

[TheMightyGoat]

Nope, you're not an idiot at all. Just hung up on something. I'm a mechanic and I get frustrated from time to time with things as well. Most of the time, if you walk away from it, go work on something else, get your mind straight again, then come back to it, you'll see something you missed in your frustration.

Having said that, I have no personal experience with the shifters in these vehicles so I'm really not going to be any help to you mechanically. Perhaps if you posted some pics of the assembly we could see something that you might have overlooked?

The biggest part of the problem is that I can't see the "assembly" to begin with. I can't pull the housing of the shifter off far enough to see what's not working without likely fucking it up more. It feels as though there may be a spring in there (something with more tension than simply the cables that run to the o/d switch and the shift button) and I don't want to over-stress it. I guess I'm going to have to disconnect the cable from the transmission and take the whole center console out to get it apart.

This is a picture of a 4Runner with a shifter identical to mine. That housing around the "stick" that holds the button at the top is what I tried to lift off. The two bolts that hold it on are towards the bottom on the front, before the angle. I can't lift it up far enough to see what is wrong in there.

If anyone has any experience or knows what might be wrong, or where I should start to get this thing apart safely and look at it, I'd appreciate it.

 

[TheMightyGoat]

Alright, I fixed it, but I'll leave this up for anyone else who might have the same problem. I had to take apart the console to look at the assembly inside the shifter handle. There's a plastic head inside the handle that is depressed when you push the button to shift. It turns out the head is angled and can reverse easily if you lift the housing on the shifter. I just had to flip it over and put everything back together.

Hope that helps someone.