Can't shift!!! HELP!!!!!

[BadDog]

I think my clutch slave cylinder died today... my car grinds into reverse, and I have to strong-arm it into any other gear. It's almost impossible to drive anywhere. Also, my clutch engagement travel is very short, almost instant-on/instant off.

This happened right after I replaced my shifter bushings this morning (or should I say "installed" as the rod bushings were totally missing!) I hope this is a coincidence! I was also doing a few other things like ripping out the old AudioVox cassette stereo and replacing the shifter boot... I started her up to drive to the stereo shop, and when I went to put her in gear, I started hearing this wierd high-pitched whine or whistle. I blipped the throttle and it went away, but when I put her in gear again and pulled away, I found that my clutch's engagement travel was about a third of what it was before!

Right now it's at the stereo shop, and I'm hoping I'll be able to drive it home once the tranny cools down.

[BadDog]

Disregard my cry for help.... turns out my clutch master cylinder was almost bone dry I must have a slow leak somewhere. I topped it oof with fluid then pumped the clutch pedal like 100 times and everything's back to normal... I think I'll order the parts to replace master, slave, and line...

[Daniel]

Glad to hear you got it fixed(almost).As far as grinding when you put it in reverse.A tip.Put the car in first gear then reverse.Reverse has no syncro gear as your forward gears.That will stop the gear spinning.Without this reverse will usually grind even if the clutch is fine. Daniel

[BadDog]

Well *that's* good to know.... here I am thinking "oh no, my reverse synchro is going" and I don't even have one! I'll try to make it a habit to go 1st-->Reverse... the only problem is my daily driver has a totally different shift pattern!

[jcdozier]

Sometimes the "first then reverse" dosn't work with the 5-speed on my 4-Runner. Another "trick" is to double-clutch when going into reverse - that usually gets mine there with a minimum of grinding.