See the picture of the spring / button. The area in the circle is actually supposed to be the little black tab going all the way to the right of the white piece. I did not realize it was missing a small "match head" sized piece. Evidently it was brittle and fell apart when the button came out (I thought it was made this way). So, without the little piece that fell out, the peg (see second picture) seated itself in the "hole" when I put the button into the shifter. Having seated itself there, when I depressed the button to shift - it would not move. Thus, I figured the car was stuck in park. Well, it was but, it was the button that was stuck, not the transmission / shifter. What a weird thing with so many variable problems to be the potential reason - then to have found this! Crazy. New part was $38. 1998 4Runner 2wd automatic
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