Rod shifter won't shift into 5th gear

[masho95]

Ok, here's the deal, me and a friend are trying to swap out his cable shifter to a rod shifter. From the SHOTimes instructions I guess there is supposed to be an upper support under the boot. His didn't come with one. No a biggie. Under the car the lower mounting bracket is secured and seems to be properly aligned. But when the rod shifter is attached to the rear studs of the lower bracket it seems that the top of the rod shifter seems to almost touch the lower mounting bracket. Is it supposed to sit inside of the grooves of the lower mounting bracket? Also the rod shifter isn't horizontal when the stabilizer bolt is attached to the tranny. So that's making the plastic sliders that slide on the metal cockeyed and are unable to slide right. At first I figured that's why it wouldn't shift into 5th gear. All the other gears will engage perfectly when setup like this. So I pulled the shifter from the car and tried shifting it into fifth gear. It seems that when you try to engage fifth it starts to go then pulls slightly to the left and doesn't seem to fully go into 5th gear position. So is it something internal in the shifter box causing it not to engage 5th gear? I've had mine apart before to replace the bushings, but I don't remember exactly how it was setup...is there something in there that would prevent it from engaging the 5th gear position??? Thanks for any input!

 

[masho95]

bump.... anyone?

 

[AutoSHO]

Are the motor mounts, trans mount, and subframe mounts all good? If the shifter is sitting sideways when the support is bolted on, something is not right in the Mounts up front... or the whole car is very tweaked.

 

[masho95]

AutoSHO:
Are the motor mounts, trans mount, and subframe mounts all good? If the shifter is sitting sideways when the support is bolted on, something is not right in the Mounts up front... or the whole car is very tweaked.

This is trying to shift the car with it NOT running. I think it's the lower mounting plate that wasn't completely lined up. It's pretty close now, but the rear sliders aren't lined up and they won't slide.

 

[AutoSHO]

That is what I mean... If one end of the motor is sitting lower than it should, its going to put the shifter (and sliding bushings) in a bind.

 

[masho95]

AutoSHO:
That is what I mean... If one end of the motor is sitting lower than it should, its going to put the shifter (and sliding bushings) in a bind.

It's pretty hard to have the motor sitting lower than it should except for completely failed mounts. The motor is lined up and the motors looked fine.

But if you look at the orignal message I said that the shifter didn't want to go into 5th even when it wasn't mounted in the car. I can't remember if there was something inside the shifter box that would prevent it from going into the 5th gear spot.

The tranny shifts flawlessly into 5th by moving the tranny gear selector shaft.