Shifter's givin me a workout

[SuperHO]

Last week sometime, I was cruising along when all of a sudden, I wasn't able to get the shifter over to 5th. After some fanagaling, I found that the entire gate was blocked off somehow. After some forceful pursuasion (read: beat the living shit out of it), I was able to get the stick to move over. Now, It's a bitch to get the shifter over into 5th or reverse, and downshifting from 5th to 4th involves some elbow grease. Not to mention that once I'm in 4th, it takes a hairy set of balls to break free of 4th gear to move into any other gear. However, going from 1st through 4th, the shifter moves like it's been soaked in massage oil. Smooth as a baby's ass, that is.

So.....what the **** is wrong with my damn shifter??? Can I take it apart and clean it out (assuming there's something gunked up in there)? Is it a bad bushing that I can't find? The stabilizer rod is still bolted up good and firm, and I can't find anything visibly damaged under there, but when I knock on the shifter assembly, I fancy I can hear something rattling.

Please, SHO gurus and all knowing llamas....help me with this, as my right arm will forever be greatful!!

 

[SHOtime2511]

get under it and check the linkage,where it connects to the transmission.

 

[Racer X]

Scary version?

There's a shift gate inside the MTX, that has a reverse lockout pawl on it, because lets face it, sometimes when we're going for the gusto, little devices like that are there to save our bacon.

Back OT, your pawl is probably damaged or dislodged, and it causing problems in those shifter positions. If the linkage checks out OK, then that's the last thing, and it's repair/ replacement requires disassembly of the transaxle.

 

[SuperHO]

I crawled under it once to poke and prod at the rods to make sure nothing was binding them up. The stabilizer rod's mounting point on the tranny had to be reinforced thanks to an idiotic clutch drop on my part that seperated the rod's mounting point from the trans. But everything looks okay. Someone told me that there's a bushing on the shifter assembly that could be going to shit....

I'm not really thinking it's an internal problem with the transmission, cuz otherwise, it would ONLY affect that particular gate...instead, it also affects any gear I downshift into from 5th (yes, sometimes I go from 5th to 3rd, depending on speed...spare me an ass chewing on that one). If I go from 5th into any gear, whatever gear I go in is sticky until I change it, then all's well with it. However, is there any other way to diagnose if the reverse lock out pawl is in fact *****?

 

[SuperHO]

Bump for more sage advice/humerous anecdotes/dirty jokes?

 

[Bizzy]

When you beat the shit out of it you can break off part of the shift fork inside. It's never a good idea to force a trans into or out of a gear like that.

Nothing wrong with skipping a gear when down shifting unless you over-rev the engine. The trans doesn't care. The clutch might care though. Straps break......

Does it do the same thing with the car turned off without depressing the clutch pedal? With the car off and NOT using the clutch it should shift freely through all the gears. That's the place to start.

 

[SuperHO]

yeah...even with the car turned off and no part of my body touching the clutch pedal, it still does it. even sitting with the car idling with the clutch out, it's difficult to get over in that gate for 5th and reverse. That's what's drawn me the conclusion that it's in the shifter and not the trans...please tell me I'm right...

 

[Phoenix]

Could a fed'up motor mount - tranny mount - subframe bushings displace the shifter rods to that point?

 

[93rev2sev]

Here's the test...

Prop the clutch to the floor, disconnect shifter at tranny (10mm through bolt) and attempt to shift gears with the gear selector shaft...use a screwdriver in the little hole that the shifter bolts to.

All the way out is 1st, 3rd, 5th
Middle is neutral
All the way in is 2nd, 4th, rev.

Always start in neutral
First, turn the shift shaft all the way to the left and then pull it out for 1st gear. From here, the only place you should be able to go is to push it in(back to neutral), if you continue pushing forward on it, it will hit second.
Pull it back out to neutral.
Turn it one notch to the right and pull it out. This should hit third.
Pushing in will hit neutral, push it more and get 4th.
Pull it back to neutral
Turn one more notch to the right...still in neutral
Pull out for 5th
Push it in again, wiggle it, turn it all the way to the right and push it all the way in...this should be reverse.

If at first you dont succeed, have someone rotate the tires a little. If you can't get it into all gears while the tires are being rotated (slowly), then you most likely have an internal tranny issue.

This could be a broken (probably bent) internal shift fork. If you continue to force it, you will be dead in the water and probably will destroy whatever is left of the tranny...I mean gears, case, everything.

These same exact antics cost me a new tranny in 1998. $1800, thank you very much.

 

[Bizzy]

With the shift linkage detached you shouldn't have to rotate the wheels at all to get it to shift by hand, on a healthy trans that is. Simply put a punch in the hole where the cable or rod shifter attach and slide the shift shaft into the gears. If it's hard to go into gears by hand then there's something wrong inside.

Let me say though that it's not easy as butter to shift the gears by hand, but it's not hard either. There is some resistance and it does require some effort but it's not "hard" either. Hard to describe in words.

 

[SuperHO]

Okay.....so the removal of the shift rod test led to the problem being inside the transmission. Going over to the reverse/5th gate, there's a thunking from inside the transmission and it takes more effort to get it over there than the first 4. what's my next course of action? Did I just buy a new transmission?

 

[0V3RC10CK3D]

Look at the bright side, it will make a Quaife install much easier

 

[93rev2sev]

I do believe you are the new future owner of an old used new transmission.

 

[Bizzy]

There is a thunk when going into reverse even on a healthy trans and it does take a little more effort than the other gears so that is not totally uncommon. I wish I could describe to you exactly how it feels.........

Did you get a chance to check the shifter parts for wear or loose connections?

 

[blue thunder]

Could be something as simple as the pressure plate. I'm going through that now. All these clutches advertised are good for the track, but a sho driven everyday, race clutches aren't the best. I've now gone through 2 race clutches and 3 regular clutches only one orginal was ford. My car has 280,000 on it and I'm going back to the one that has worked the best for me. Neither race or ford.

 

[SuperHO]

How much more effort? It took a pretty good chunk of change to twist it over into the 5th/reverse gate. Going into that gate, there was a loud click/thunk, and coming out of it, there was another loud click/thunk. I haven't gotten a chance to pull the lil black box off the shifter yet, and I probably won't until monday at the soonest, since I'm parking it for the weekend for a trip down to kentucky. But if any revalations come up while I'm away, feel free to share em.

I've got a spec stage II in there, and it's been working marvelously for me. I've no complaints on the clutch. And it's certainly not in the clutch, since the condition is present no matter if the car's running or not or if the clutch pedal's on the floor or not.

 

[twr]

If you were able to shift it through all the gears from under the car using a punch as Bizzy described, I'd bet the trans is fine. How did the shifter feel with it detached from trans?

 

[Bizzy]

How much more effort? It took a pretty good chunk of change to twist it over into the 5th/reverse gate. Going into that gate, there was a loud click/thunk, and coming out of it, there was another loud click/thunk. I haven't gotten a chance to pull the lil black box off the shifter yet, and I probably won't until monday at the soonest, since I'm parking it for the weekend for a trip down to kentucky. But if any revalations come up while I'm away, feel free to share em.

That's what is hard to describe. It's more effort than the other gears but not by a whole lot. It also depends on how familiar you are with manually shifting through the gears. If you don't hit it right then it can feel like it's binding. In any case, you might have broken the fork or you might have a buggered or popped synchro or bad blocking ring, it's hard to say for 100% certain.

 

[SuperHO]

How did the shifter feel with it detached from trans?

The shifter felt sloppy and all over the damn place. Truth be told, it felt like it did when I broke the boss for the stabilizer rod many months ago. For the last couple of days (minus yesterday and today, while it's been parked over 500 miles away), it's been smoothing up a little bit. I'm so lost. Should I tear my shifter apart and take a look at it to see if it's possible that a bushing's gone bad in it?

 

[Bizzy]

That would certainly be a good route to take, and cheaper than a trans.