broken linkage?

[lemkea]

the other day i was driving home and i shifted from 3rd to 2nd and i heard a pop. now all i have is thrid and fourth gear. everything shifted up is third and everything down is fourth. also while it is in the gear you can move the shifter left to right all the way and it stays in gear. car still runs fine. anyone know what the deal is? thanks a bunch, -lemke

 

[MOSHO92]

Crawl under there and check this out. If you play with it, you should be able to tell whether it is broken or not. I rebuilt mine according with help from Scott's (sdpatt) post a while ago. Do a search for it, but if you can't find it I will post it later.

 

[sdpatt]

That link would be here. The photo from that service is again posted below.

I had recently serviced that linkage to farther tighten up the play in the transaxle side of that joint. I removed the U-joint from the transaxle stub and the shift rod (now possible due to the threaded bolt at shifter side of the joint). I then pryed open the "clamshell" portion of the coupling and installed some trimmed bicycle tire inner tube to remove much of the play from the existing rubber insert. After a couple of trials, I found the appropriate thickness of rubber to add to snug up the coupling, but still allow the clamshell to attach properly to the transaxle stub. The nylon washers were still doing their job, but now had some help from the less pliable bushing. Shifts felt even firmer after that.

<small>[ February 09, 2004, 05:13 PM: Message edited by: sdpatt ]</small>