My late 80's toyota truck started to develop a difficulty shifting into and holding 3rd and 4 th gears. The transmission shop told me that it likely was the brass bushings in the tranny, and that it would either be $240 plus cost of a transmission or $440 plus parts to rebuild the transmission, with the total being between $650 and $1200. I then contacted a friend who knows autos, and he told me to pull the shifter and replace the nylon bushing the shifter rotated on and the bushing at the end of the lever. Cost was $15 in parts and two hours of my time, most of that spent trying to figure out how to disassemble the upper shifter housing since the parts had disintegrated in the housing which obscurred how to take it apart.
SO, who thinks the transmission guys likely knew what the real problem was and figured they had a quick $600 profit.
Just wanted to throw this out in case anyone else experiences this problem, as it is apparently common in vehicles approaching 200K miles.