About to throw in the towel......

talbre1 · 10-21-2012, 05:09 PM

Back in April, I purchased a nice '84 Carrera. She has 158,000 miles but had a rebuilt engine at a Porsche dealership and came with a two year warranty on the engine. Shfting was vague and I purchased and installed Ed's coupler. While installing, I got the car "stuck" in two gears and had to have her towed in. After some $300 odd bucks we were back in business. I have driven the car less than 1000 miles since I purchased it and it is my first 911. This weekend after a nice routine 40 mile drive, I returned home and washed and waxed it in the driveway. After working on the car for about 3 hours, I started the car to put it in the garage. With the gear shift in neutral, reverse is engaged and I have no forward gears. I did nothing mechanical to the car! Tomorrow morning will be another tow to the garage and probably another $300 for an adjustment. Any ideas what is wrong that could cause a repeat of the stuck in reverse problem? I love my car.....but I have been depressed about it all weekend. Any thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks,
Tim

pete3799 · pete3799's Garage

Check the coupler again. Could be the set screw has come loose or the pinch bolt has loosened.

javadog · 10-21-2012, 05:16 PM

Tim,

It sounds like the set screw in the shift coupler might have come loose. Remove the cover on the rear portion of the tunnel and have a look at it.

JR

talbre1 · 10-21-2012, 05:18 PM

OK.....I will look in the morning. Should the shift lever be moved to reverse before I tighten the set screw?

Thanks for your suggestions....
Tim

emac · emac's Garage

Tim--please do a search on this site on adjusting your shift coupler. Hours of reading but really a simple thing to do. Do NOT move the shift lever around before you know what you are doing, again the adjustment is quite simple and if done right the first time you will save yourself hours of headaches. I am not trying to be a wise a$$ with my "before you know what you are doing" comment but after reading your post and seeing the money you are spending I feel you have never adjusted the coupler, and you will feel like a million knowing you repaired it yourself

Dave Colangelo · Dave Colangelo's Garage

Along with the coupler check the base of the shifter its self. I had a nasty issue with my shifter that turned out to be a cracked shifter shaft. There is a pin welded to the front of the shaft that is used to hold the cup joint which the stick sits in. My pin welds had cracked and it was shifting around. This allowed me to shift into gears but it was very sloppy and unpredictable. It is a strange issue but worth checking out. You will have to disassemble the base of the shifter to check this out.

Regards
Dave

john walker's workshop · 10-21-2012, 06:03 PM

the stuck in two gears thing is usually caused by a previous transmission reassembly where they messed up on the position of one or both internal detents which are designed to keep this issue from happening. since it happened twice, it's a good probability. you can get it out of reverse by removing the backup light switch and pushing in on the operating pin. sometimes it's easy, sometimes it needs some effort.

ToddM · ToddM's Garage

I think a lot of us have been there.. I have had two 911s that I am convinced hated me and I sold them out of frustration and good riddance. All of my SCs have been wonderful cars!

This seems like one things and after you resolve it you should be good. Hang in there.

maui44 · 10-21-2012, 06:38 PM

Tim,

Thanks great that you put Ed's coupler in however, you got a couple ofter bushings in there.

What did they do for your $300.00?

Take a look at the following link. It will provide you some additional incite on your shifting.

Pelican Technical Article: Shifting Improvements - 911 (1965-86) - 930 Turbo (1975-86)

Good luck

tazzieman · tazzieman's Garage

An example of how the Bentley manual is worth it's weight in gold , plus the free knowledges of the forum.
$300 is TOO MUCH! Even taking out the tow charge , this should not take longer than 1/2 hour (10mins when you know how)

Wayne 962 · Wayne 962's Garage

John is right. Rebuilding transmissions is tricky, and if you don't do it properly with the proper orientation and configuration of the detents, then you can have these issues. I would also agree that your transmission may have been improperly rebuilt at one time.

-Wayne