915 Locked up and stuck in 3rd

gredtarga · 05-24-2008, 01:06 PM

I went to take my cold car for a drive and got the car locked-up in the driveway. The shifter was acting funning while trying to put it in reverse, after being in neutral, and then it got it stuck in 3rd during the frantic "please fix yourself while I play with the shifter process". Now, the 83 Targa will not roll with the clutch in, or go to into neutral. Depressing the clutch , I can start the engine, but that's it. The linkage at the tanny moves free. The shifter has been a little sloppy lately and the tranny did stick in reverse one time last week. Messing with the shifter fixed it last time but not this time. Please tell me there is an easy fix; a coin stuck in the shifter or something like that.

gredtarga · 05-24-2008, 02:01 PM

Now the shifter is in back to normal but the car in stuck in reverse; car never made it out of the driveway. I'm going to start drinking, maybe that will help.

Trog · Trog's Garage

Check your shifter coupling

superwrench · 05-24-2008, 04:10 PM

Check out this post from 5-20-08, How to get out of gear?(915 trany rebuild) hope this helps.

gredtarga · 05-24-2008, 05:29 PM

I sure hope it's the shifter and not the tranny. When I look at the coupling under the cover it looks and feels solid but it doesn't seem to move as much as the shifter when moved. That's is how I got it out of 1st (at first I thought it was stuck in third), by holding and turning the coupler helping the shifter. It seemed like trying to go into reverse did something and I got it loose and the shifter pulled back to the neutral position but the car is still in reverse now. I bought the bushing kit a year ago but have chickened out when it came to putting them in. The coupling under the cover in the rear looks OK from an untrained eye and I don't have a press. I didn't want to mess things up. Could the problem be in the shifter mechanism and not the coupling by the back seat?

john walker's workshop · 05-24-2008, 05:41 PM

remove the backup light switch on the trans end cover and push in the pin until it gets out of reverse. may take minor effort, like hammer and punch. may have to take the trans mount off to get to it easier, but you don't really have to. will drool.

snbush67 · snbush67's Garage

A similar thing happened to me, I could not force the reverse pin back, I ended up draining the gear oil and taking off the bottom cover, I was able to move the gears and realigned the shift fork (I think) this way, about 3 months later it happened again so I did the same routine, I found a cotter pin that was worn badly and looked like it was getting hung up. I replaced it, so far so good.

RSstop · 04:07 AM

It is in Reverse. Take the shifter and put it where Reverse should be, and pull it back to neutral. If you concentrate on that movement a few times, it usually, finally engages the fork. If not, then John's method shouldn't be too difficult.

The final fix for one transmission was a disassemby and proper shift fork adjustment to move the reverse fork shaft away from the others.
Another car only required shifter bushings and hasn't had a problem since.
Lyn

gredtarga · 05-25-2008, 06:39 AM

Update: I just lifted the shifter. The shifter bushing on the end looks ok but the other one inside is split-in-two; lenghtwise separated on the shifting rod. I'm going to replace these and then work the box. Does anyone have any special tricks? Other wise I will follow the great advise you guys provide by working reverse and neutral. Should I apply and force with the engine? Or should I just move on the the reverse back-up light fix from John? Car is still in garage stuck in reverse with full movement of shifter. Friday I had no plans for the long weekend.....

john walker's workshop · 05-25-2008, 07:11 AM

transmissions that get stuck like this usually have been apart before and reassembled with one or both vertical detents in the wrong position.

mike635 · mike635's Garage

Must be the season for this, same thing happened to me this week while trying to leave work for the long weekend. It did happen once before and both times I managed to get it to pop back into neutral and then readjusted the shift coupling all over again. To get it out of reverse it took a lot of playing around with the shifter (move it to reverse then back, carefully let the clutch out and back in to jog things around) My car tend to go between reverse and 5th (I assume)

I know this is not uncommon and people have asked before but, what do you do? Not drive the car worrying that it will get locked up again somewhere extremely inconvenient?

I can't afford to rebuilt mine right now so I'm just going to gamble and carry tools but it is a concern. Not driving the car isn't an option

Mike

gredtarga · 05-25-2008, 04:53 PM

Got the new bushings in tonight; only the shifter ball and the bracket bushings up front. I did not touch the rear coupler. Yippee! All is well now. Started the engine with the clutch in, let it out to confirm still stuck in reverse; it was. Then I shifted the shifter around and put it back in the neutral and let out the clutch. Wow! Neutral and back to normal. Well, even better than normal. Thank you all!
Pelican Rules!