Stuck in Gear

[HMeeder]

This is my tale of woe. Excuse me in advance for its length.

About a week before the Feb 17 Autocross my '72 tailshifter began to get a bit notchy and it seemed like the synchro was going south. Still, it was driveable and with a bit of speedshifting I had no major problems. I adjusted the clutch a bit and went to the Autocross.

I ran the car hard but it performed great. Two days later I changed the tranny oil and found some metal shavings on the magnet on the plug. More than I wanted to see but not what I thought an outrageous amount.

About a week later, the synchro became more unmanageable and I had to be very careful to rev match or I got significant grinding.

Finally, yesterday I pulled into my driveway and the car got stuck in reverse. This is the sole highlight of the story. I had to drive in reverse all the way around the block so I could back into the driveway and onto my ramps. I love giving the neighbors something new to talk about.

I can't get it out of reverse gear and it remains in reverse gear even when the gear selecter is in neutral. Clutch works fine. I can't move the gear selector into reverse, 1st, 2nd or 3rd but it will move into 4th and 5th.

If I put it into 4th or 5th and release the clutch, the car stalls out (won't move.) Haynes in the transmission teardown says that if the tranny is in 2 gears simultaneously, the driveshaft is immobilized (this makes sense if the car is stuck in reverse and I put it into 4th at the same time and the car can't move.)

Here are the questions:

1. Is it possible that this could be a problem in the gear selector housing? (I will be draining the tranny tomorrow, so I'll be taking a look. It appears that the shift linkage is working right despite its goldbergian complexity.)

2. What is the first thing to look at to try and solve my problem?

3. Will I have to tear the transmission down (broken fork or slider or somesutch?)

4. I have a spare transmission (sideshifter from my '74 parts car. I have all the parts including the motor mount.) I was eventually going to put the sideshifter in the '72 but was going to wait until rust had completely claimed the '74. The sideshifter shifts well and has no synchro problem though is a touch notchy going into 1st (doesn't want to go into gear unless the car is rolling up to a stop.) Should I go ahead, do the transplant and sell the motor to one of the 40 or so people who have been e-mailing me about it?

Hopefully someone has seen this before, please help!

As a repair strategy, I have already eliminated jumping up and down in histerics. Seems to have no effect.

Many thanks in advance!

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Herb
'72 1.7 Tangerine 'Teen
'74 2.0 Red Rustmobile

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

It is possible that the gear selector rod has gotten mis-meshed with the shift forks inside the transmission. You may be able to get them lined up again by pulling off the rear cover and messing with things, and/or pulling off the plug in the hole in the left side of the tranny (where the side-shifter linkage goes in on the side-shift trannies) and messing with things in there.

I have zero experience working with the tail-shifters, so you'll have to check the pictures in Haynes for inspiration about what "messing with things" entails.

Or you could just do the side-shifter conversion now. The only downside I see is that you'll have to get rid of the 74 shell--it sounds like the motor is spoken for already.

--DD

[Conrad W Peden]

I had a similar problem and it turned out to be 'bent' reverse shift fork.

Might not be your problem though, just mine.

Thats when I went to sideshifter.

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CWP/VIR
72 914 L20E in rusto.
73 914 L20E 2.0L in resto.
http://members.rennlist.com/a914lover

[bpick84]

I had a similar situation with a tailshifter. I broke a motor mount which threw the shifting linkage totally out of alignment. To make a long story short, you can force the shift selector finger out of the 1st/rev gate and into another, while the reverse gear is still engaged. Take the rear cover off. You will probably find that reverse is not fully engaged. If you are lucky you can work the shift selector rod and the shift rods where they come thru the intermediate plate and realign the gates. Try to set all gears at neutral. You may have to pull the fork off on the side to align the selector finger. If that does not work, you will have to pull the transmission.

[John Rogers]

Good thing that didn't happen at the last auto-x!!!!! I can see you doing the course backwards!!!! I would recommend swapping the trans, mount, linkage, etc instead of even opening the tailshift case since you have the parts. Leave the tailshifter for another time when you have lots of time to spare. There will be those that say "it won't be original..." and to that I'd answer shifting well and not original is much better than original and not shifting. Good luck.

[HMeeder]

Thanks John:

If I remember right I did a small portion of the course backwards anyways!

I am leaning toward the swap as it is. I don't give 2 hoots about "originality" What I want is a healthy, solid and fun car. No concourses for me.

I was however, hoping for something a bit more technical than "open it up and mess with it" but who can tell anything through a phone line? Since my shop consists of me lying on my back in the driveway, today's rains preclude me from doing even that much.



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Herb
'72 1.7 Tangerine 'Teen
'74 2.0 Red Rustmobile

[scotty914]

heck swap motors and tranny forget the 1.7



------------------
scott thacher
75 1.8 under construction
75 under rust
(fine german rust)

[John Rogers]

The tranny swap is possible in the driveway just make sure the car is good and high and very solidly on blocks/jack stands. As for working on tranmisions, the last one I worked on was my 1963 HD race motorcycle and I decided then that experts could do it better and in the long run cheaper than I. In San Diego we are really lucky to have shops like Black Forest, Dieters, Performance and others that can do the tranny overhaul at a reasonable cost, especially since it will be out of the car. I'd get it out and overhauled and save as a spare (I have two) just in case. Good luck.

[JP Noonan]

I second the whole drive train swap. It's almost as easy as trying to separate the motor from the tranny under the car and then supporting the engine with the trans out.

Your call, but 2.0's are sooooooo much more fun than 1.7L's