my 1994 f150 has a "loose stick". I have to jam it into gear , especially while going to 1st, and 3rd is in a weird place. Once i get it into gear theres no problems but its gotten so annoying lately that im ready to fix the issue. Im just not sure what i need to replace. I heard from a guy a while back thats its something made of plastic thats causing the issue, which im assuming must be at least rubber. Could this be the transmission mount?

 

My money is on the synchros.

 

There are a lot of candidates:
Worn synchros, bent or worn shift forks or a worn shift lever pivot ball (which is the plastic part your friend mentioned) are the most obvious.
1st and 3rd operate on different shift forks and different synchro pairs so for them to be the issue you'd need a couple of worn parts. If it were the pivot ball, the lever would be sloppy going into all 6 gears not just 2.

One question: when you're driving, do you rest your hand on the shift lever? That can lead to damage on the shift forks

 

It would REALLY help us to know what transmission the truck has. Nothing in your post even specifies if you're talking about a manual or automatic. If you don't know which trans you've got, read this caption:

 

Nope not at all, this all just suddenly happened one day after racing through the gears

 

the truck has a 5 speed tranny

 

So you're not gonna read that caption & tell us which one?

 

It says M under trans. does that help?

 

It tells us that you have a Mazdog tranny. It is a very light duty unit which will not stand up to much abuse. There's a very good chance that when you were "racing through the gears" you bent the shift forks. If you're really lucky all you did was destroy the shift lever pivot ball.

The only way to find out is to pull the shift lever assy off the tranny and inspect for damage. If the pivot ball is OK then you'll need to pull the entire top cover to see what lies beneath. If you've bent the forks, you're looking at re-building or replacing the trans.