Our R154  (and W58) gearboxes are several years old and sometimes they just don’t shift like you would anymore.  One cause of this harsh shifting is that the plastic bushing in the shifter housing has gone bad. You can replace the old one by a new one just like it, or even better, replace it by an upgraded piece found in the landcruiser and 4-runner.

You will have to buy two cheap parts:
Green shifter seal #33505-35020 (The one you see in the pictures)
White hard bushing #33548-31010 (This one goes on your shifter)

Replace in 5 steps:

You can see the old seal in the shifter housing:

 

Now pry it out with a screwdriver:

 

Get the new seal and tear it out of the new plastic. Whooo!:

 

Whoomp! There it is.

 

Carefully place the new seal in the shifter housing:

 

Now it is time to replace the shifter bushing on the lever.

On the first picture the old worn out one next to the new one:

 

You can just push it on to the shifter:

 

 

All done! Happy shifting 🙂