Blacksburg Hokie

Occasionally after backing up and changing to 1st gear, my transmission gets stuck in reverse. The shifter will move out of reverse, but the car will stay in reverse or get stuck. What I mean by stuck is, the shifter moves to the neutral area, but if I take my foot off the clutch and brake while the car is off, the car won't roll. It feels locked-up. Most times, I just put it back in reverse I can get back to first gear and be on my way. The other day it got stuck and I couldn't do anything. My mechanic told me to crawl under the car and pull the linkage by hand to get it out of gear, which I did and that worked.

I have a '61 Corvette, 4-speed 283, T-10, all very original. All of this has occurred after my mechanic installed a transmission rebuild kit for me that I purchased from Ecklers. He said the linkage is good, but the shifter looks original and he can tell there has been some welding done to keep it operational. I am trying to figure out if he did something wrong or if the shifter is old and worn.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!
Tim

blackvette58

One possibility is that the linkage needs to be re-adjusted with the transmission selector in the neutral position. There is a wood block available to hold the lever in the proper neutral position while adjusting the linkage.

wombvette

Pretty common problem when the shifter is worn enough that the ball slips by the slot and lets the lever stay in reverse.

Redbird

Buy a Hurst shifter and you will never look back.

Jimbo64

i agree=thats what we did with the 64=love it and it doesn't hang up