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Quite a while back, I posted asking for assistance to do a tranny swap on my 81.
The tranny is on, pedals are on and so are the linkages. Bad part is, when I went in to try the shifter it was just moving freely and catching on to the linkages!
What did I forget and how do I deal with this? PLEASE HELP!
What transmission are you using? if its an internal rail type (T5/T56/Tremec), the shifter ball probbaly isn't seated properly in the cup. On some of these transmissions, it is possible to bolt the shifter down without it being seated. If it has external linkage (any 4 speed, Richmond, Doug Nash, etc), it sounds like it just isn't adjusted properly.
What shifter do you have? A stock type or a Hurst ? Anyway with an external shifter with somebody below and somebody above it should be easy to see whats going on.
From the description of the problem, it sounds like you need to adjust the shifter and linkage. Look in a repair manual for instructions, but usually it is as easy as unhooking all of the linkage from the shifter, insert a 1/4" rod or drill bit into the shifter alignment holes, which aligns the 3 shifter linkage attachment points, then making sure the the trans is in neutral, adjust all the linkage rods to where they will line up exactly to their corresponding hole in the shifter while the trans is in neutral. You can click the trans into neutral by moving the trans shift levers by hand into the center position on the detents. The reverse lever has only 2 positions, in or out of reverse, so make sure you have this lever out of reverse while doing the adjustment. This should fix the problem unless the shifter is broken or worn severely.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THAT VERY CLEAR AND USEFUL INFO!!!!!
We started this about 7 months ago and I really don't want it to end up being a project. I've read articles on here wherein people have done it in 2 to 3 days.
Really difficult when there's not much help around. Thank you once again!!!
From the description of the problem, it sounds like you need to adjust the shifter and linkage. Look in a repair manual for instructions, but usually it is as easy as unhooking all of the linkage from the shifter, insert a 1/4" rod or drill bit into the shifter alignment holes, which aligns the 3 shifter linkage attachment points, then making sure the the trans is in neutral, adjust all the linkage rods to where they will line up exactly to their corresponding hole in the shifter while the trans is in neutral. You can click the trans into neutral by moving the trans shift levers by hand into the center position on the detents. The reverse lever has only 2 positions, in or out of reverse, so make sure you have this lever out of reverse while doing the adjustment. This should fix the problem unless the shifter is broken or worn severely.
Thank you again for your assistance. We got the shifter to line up and now shifts to all gears.
New problem, the tranny is not in neutral and we tried every sequence to get it in neutral but all failed. There's a time that I turned the wheels (car in jack stands) and both will turn forward but will not turn backwards. The wheels only turn forward and will not budge if you try to turn it backward.
What's wrong and how do we get the transmission in neutral????
After several tries, we were able to get the tranny to stay in neutral but when we were attaching the rods, they're too long. Please see pics and if you have any suggestions.
That's what's mind boggling. When the shifter was not sitting correctly, the rods reached the transmission perfectly. But that's when I got into the car only to find out that the shifter was floating around.
We took the crossmember down and readjusted the shifter, get it on neutral and reinstalled it. We then had quite a bit of a problem getting the tranny on neutral and when we did, as you can see in the pics the rods just won't fit right.