915 prob fixed. Big thanks to Pelican forums and John Walker!

[Arne2]

Big thanks to the Pelican forums, and the sage advise of John Walker in particular. The instructions posted here from John addressing my problem turned what first appeared to be a major issue into an easily remedied minor inconvenience. Here is the story:

I installed a Seine GSK and Ed's coupler bushings into my '84 a few weeks ago. Both items are great, but after a bit of driving, I felt that I needed to fine-tune the coupler adjustment a bit. Since I already had a new-to-me replacement console (Parts Heaven) and leather shift boot/knob (AGLA) on the way, I figured I'd tweak the adjustment while I had it all apart.

Side note - I have found that while the coupler adjustment for side-to-side is well documented, the fore-and-aft adjustment is rarely—if ever—mentioned, either here or in the Bentley. And in my car with factory short shift kit, the fore-aft adjustment window for proper function of the reverse lock-out is quite small. I have to adjust the static neutral position well forward, very close to the fifth gear gate tab. Too far back and the lock-out won't trip into place. Perhaps this is caused by the short shift, I don't know.

So on Saturday, I removed my original, damaged console and removed the shift tower to have the GSK's tab welded. After that was done I proceeded to re-adjust the coupler. Somewhere in this process, it went sour. I'm not certain what I did, but I got the adjustment far enough out of whack that when I tested it by running through the gears, suddenly everything felt wrong. No matter how I adjusted it, there appeared to be gears missing. I appeared to have lost a good part of the side-to-side motion.

On further checking, it became obvious that most of the time, I had two gears engaged at once, and one of them was always reverse. While I don't read every thread here, this seemed familiar to me, so I searched the forum for "915 reverse stuck" and got numerous hits, mostly all relevant.

Several of these threads had posts from John Walker which recommended removing the reverse light switch and pushing the rod found there back into the transmission. Doing this should disengage reverse gear. John noted that sometimes the rod will go in fairly easily, but other times it might require a bit of effort.

I decided that to try to ease the process, I put the shifter into what would appear to be neutral, at which point only reverse itself was engaged. I had the left side of the car up as high as I could get it with my floor jack, and supported by jack-stands front and rear. This left the left rear wheel well up in the air. I released the parking brake, then pulled the reverse light switch and pushed on the small rod found inside. Wouldn't budge, but that didn't surprise me. So I pushed on the rod while jiggling the left rear tire back and forth, and that worked—the rod popped back into place and the rear wheel spun free! I was back in neutral!

After putting everything back and getting the car back on the ground, I proceeded to (far more carefully) adjust the coupler correctly, and then installed the new shift boot/knob and console.

Thanks to this forum and John's great advise, what certainly sounded like a really bad problem turned out to be a only minor delay.

A few questions remain—is there any fallout from this problem? Will it be more prone to do this again in the future? Or was it solely caused by my ham-fisted job at the coupler adjustment? If I keep the coupler and linkage properly adjusted and maintained, is it unlikely to happen again?

[Arne2]

No ideas on whether I should be concerned about a relapse?

[DRACO A5OG]

That is interesting. I purposely moved my shifter closer to me so I would not have to reach so much when I shift.

Maybe I need to revisit my adjustment and place the shifter via couple dead center as PAG designed. ??? I have no issues, but I hate to have the opposite what you are going thru with 5th.

As far as reverse issue, I think you are good now since all is properly adjusted. But time will tell. How long has it been since the correction?

[Arne2]

Not long, I fixed it yesterday, have driven it a couple of times since. All seems fine now, all gears engage as they should, and the lockout is now working reliably. I don't know what actually causes a 915 to refuse to come out of reverse, but many cases that I read about seem to be prompted by sloppy couplers or poor adjustment, so I'm pretty sure I did it myself. Hoping that now that it is adjusted correctly, with all new bushings and such, that the reverse problem won't reappear.

[DRACO A5OG]

I think with JW's help, you got it 5X5. Keep us posted, I am very curious of knowing if shifter must be centered fore/aft via the coupler or not.

My buddy, well known here did the coupler adjust just south of center and he had no issues. But I want to be sure.

[Arne2]

I agree, if I could adjust mine farther back and still have a working reverse lock-out, I'd do it. But even adjusted dead center fore and aft on my car will not allow the lock-out to work. Adjusted that way the lever does not move forward far enough to allow the lock-out tab to spring back into place. I strongly suspect this may be due to the factory short shift on my car. With the pivot moved up as it is, the lever doesn't move very far that close to the fulcrum.

[DRACO A5OG]

In any case good to read she is running again. RSD!

[ivangene]

adjustment...they are so critical and the trouble is (esp with the coupler) that when you loosen it up to move it a tiny amount....it moves like an inch!!

I messed with mine WAY more than I should have had to also. I ended up removing the console to see what was going on (I was either nicking R or stuck somewhere) and found that I needed two more hands to help me.

After I "nailed it" about 1-1/2 years ago its been sweet ever since. I hope you got it now! I think you are fine and should not have any issues here forward on the matter.

[swade]

I had the same stuck in two gears problem, solved the same way, it was a month ago and it has not re-occured. Have had the car out 3 times on some twisty roads and shifting fine.

W

[lindy 911]

Same problem last year after an engine re-build, same advice from John Walker, same results. For 94,000 miles, my 915 works pretty well but not before proper adjustment.

[Arne2]

OK, thanks to all for the feedback. I knew that I was far from the first to have the "stuck in reverse" problem, and how those issues were resolved. But I had not seen any feedback on long-term fallout, if any. Good to hear that the problem does not seem to come back (unless I were to botch the adjustment again).

[larrym]

if it's about personalizing our cars, anything is possible

we have been doing that for years in Manx VW buggies

what we have to do is cut the shiftrod shorter - VW guys sell a replacement coupler to install once we do that


.

[Autoban]

Very interesting to read this. I have a '86 with a 915 gear box. Mine shifts OK, but not great especially engaging 1st and up or down into 2nd. I have read many times that there should be a little play in the shifter when in 5th gear, but mine is rock solid in 5th. I am thinking about going through the adjustment procedure, but am I opening up a can of worms?

[snbush67]

I had the same problem, twice, when I first bought my car, I later attributed it to running the wrong gear oil. Since I switched to regular gear oil I haven't had any issues.

[Autoban]

What do you consider "regular gear oil"?

[DRACO A5OG]

Oh my, don't go there, someone may have an aneurysm

[snbush67]

Originally Posted by Autoban

What do you consider "regular gear oil"?

For a 915-

Non synthetic, non limited slip, cheap ass, 3$ a qt. generic frikken gear oil.

I am using Kendall 75 or 80/90W.

[DRACO A5OG]

Oh you've done it

[snbush67]

P.S. I am not racing in Fla.

[strikee]

I just did exactly the above. Eds new couplers, had it shifting really good apart from 5th was a beeatch. Decided to adjust it one more time this evening and it became stuck in reverse gear. I had to get my wife out of bed so I could push it back onto our drive. She wasnt pleased.

Finaly it seems to of dropped out of reverse and its now in neutral. Had to walk away as i was tired and its dark.

Fresh eyes and daylight at the weekend should fix it.

So what transmission oil is everyone using? Did someone say swepco? Or kendall? Perhaps I should start a thread on it? ;-)

ED