Aight my buddy has a 87 pickup an the transmission started havin problems stayin in first gear. Its a 4 cylinder model an its 4 wheel drive. It started out just hoppin outta gear every now an again then after about 2 days it wouldnt stay in 1st at all. While it was still drivable u could hold it in 1st an it would be alright but eventually it would just pop out either way. Has anybody else had this problem an know of any cheaper solution than takin it to a shop an lettin them look at it??

 

shifter bushings. get them from marlin crawler, theyre on his website

 

Is this somethin we can do without pullin the transmission? like just pullin tha shift boot off an do the work from the top?

 

You can do it by just removing the shifter boot from the cab of the truck. I changed one on my '88 4x2 and it is easy. The hardest part is removing all the pieces of the old broken one. I remember seeing a write-up somewhere. I will see if I can find it.

 

I found a write-up with lots of pictures: http://www.brian894x4.com/Shifter.html

 

it may be syncros too.
definitely try the bushing first, cause you dont have to remove the transmission, and its pretty cheap.

but did the shifter have slop before it started popping out? if not, my guess is that the bushing wont help.

if the syncros are bad then it could be possible that its not going into gear all the way and the load from moving the truck is popping it out of gear. if thats the case, your tranny is coming out.

just rebuilt my w56 (see avatar). cost me 250 bucks for the rebuild kit with syncros and i had to buy a $200 20 ton press to do it.

but i dont recommend doing it if you dont know what you are doing to begin with. you could get a junkyard special, but if syncros are your problem anything you pull from the junkyard is going to have just as many miles and be in just as bad a shape, or worse. might want to source a rebuilt unit at that point.