I have a 1987 Toyota truck 4x4 with a 22RE engine. I was driving today and was running and shifting fine. I came to a stop at a red light and the shifter would not move out of fourth gear. The clutch still engages and disengages fine, but the shifter physically won’t move from fpurth gear. I haven’t taken it to the shop yet and would like to have a general idea of what may be wrong before I do.
If the engine is off, does it run through the gears fairly easily? If it does, your having problems with the clutch not fully disengaging. Check the clutch fluid, and consider replacing the master and salve cylinder together.
If it feels just as rough with the engine off, try changing the gear lube out. This truck should have the fluid changed every 70,000 miles or so. Most people ignore it. See if that helps, otherwise the transmission will need to be disassembled to fix.
Shifter will not move with engine on or off. I changed the slave cylinder about 8 months ago and I checked the fluid in the transmission master cylinder. If it is low on gear lube in the transmission would this cause the shifter to seize.
It’ll cause the whole transmission to seize. If the shifter is all that is broken, you may have gotten away lucky.
Take the covers off the shifter and unbolt the shifter housing and remove the shifter. Let the shop do it if you can’t tell what you are looking for, it’s not easy to describe. The internal shifting shaft isn’t moving, but that could be due to something else being frozen (damaged).