Okay. for those of you who followed my plight yesterday. Here is the update. After I got everything taken apart, I noticed that there were two loose bolts. One wasn't going through what it should have, and another that was laying loose against the insulation. After screwed those bolts back in, I banged the shifter around in the reverse slot, and the problem miraculously disapeared. Which leads me to believe that the problem was the reverse arm pin as some of you forum members suggested.

Today however, I went to the store, and when I got back in the car, I have no reverse. All forward gears are working properly, as well as the overdrive. The shifter will go into the reverse position, and still requires the collar thing to be lifted as it should. But reverse won't engage.

Does this sound like a linkage problem to you guys? or do I need a new shifter? I would think the problem would be the reverse pin, which would indicate a problem with the shifter right? What do you guys think?

 

Anybody???

 

With out taking it a part and seeing it, I still have to believe that it is in the shifter. It has been a hundred years since I played with a stick shifter. I've been playing over in my mind the comments I made yesterday, concerning the "pin". I remember the Hurst "firing pin" of decades past. I believe that my diagnosis was basically correct, but I'm not sure of the details of the inner workings of that stock shifter. If it were MY car, I would remove the shifter, clean it up and study it. By playing with it for a short while you should see how it works, and what isn't working. I repaired my seat belt retractor, in a similar fashion. If you've never been inside of one of those, it's amazing the weights, springs, pawls, etc. A shifter should be a lot easier. My guess is that by the time you remove, study, and tighten it up, you'll have it fixed. While it's out, check out the reverse lever coming out of the trans. You mentioned grease on the shift linkage. You MAY have a leak there. You want to be sure the arm/lever protruding from the trans isn't loose or leaking. I really think it's a shifter problem, but a sloppy shifter may have caused other damage. I hope it's quick and easy. Good luck.