Shifting/Transmission Woes: Im stumped, I need a fresh perspective.

[socuriouso]

Please bear with me, but I need to give a little history leading up to now.

I have a '73, 1.7 (sideshifter) that I have been using as a daily driver, and that I am religious about keeping maintained (every 3000 miles I spend an afternoon doing valves, oil and filter, timing etc.) It had been in storage for about ten years, but was my daily driver prior to being parked. When I stored it, I made it ready for a long nap.

When I pulled it out of storage, all I needed to do was install a new battery, replace the treated gas in the tank, change the oil and filter and plugs(after the next step), and carefully crank it over (over about an hour every five minutes I would crank it starting with five and moving to ten times) without the coil attached to get oil moved back through it and into the cooler, and re-coat everything else. When I was satisfied, I popped the wire back onto the coil, put the new plugs in, and cranked it over. It caught the first time I cranked it, and fired right up the second as though it had been yesterday.

This July I took a road trip that covered around 1200 miles, all of which were highway miles. The car performed beautifully until about 20 miles from home. I stopped for gas, and ran into a hot start problem. Its happened before after a long stint on the road so I just got a couple of guys to help me push- start it and back on the road I went...........and then I tried to shift into second. The shifter went from fairly normal shifting to WAY sloppy at the top (a lot of play left and right. Second was very hard to find (the lock out kept me out of reverse), as was fourth. Reverse, first, third and fifth all were pretty much where they were supposed to be, but again much sloppier.

I had a shifter bushing kit waiting for me at home, as the plastic in the car was visibly needing to be replaced front to back (I had been keeping my fingers crossed there and back), as well as a fresh batch of Swepco. When I got to the house, I peeked under and sure enough, the firewall bushing had disappeared. I couldn't do all of the necessary work right away, but was able to get the ball cup bushing and shifter rod bushing in and was able to drive it to work and back a couple of days. While still pretty vague in the gear pattern, it was functioning fine otherwise. No slipping at stoplights, under a load, or up hills. I was very careful, babied it and got it into my garage without incident for the necessary work. (I was also doing some work on the intake manifolds....different story)

I drained the old gear oil and inspected the drain_plug for metal debris (its magnetic) and I found very little in the way of metal on it. Just a bit of fine metal filings, nothing that remotely looked catastrophic. I took apart the front and back shifter rods at the cone screws and proceeded to replace all the bushings. The firewall shifter rod bushing helped me invent a whole new kind of profanity, but it is in as are the other two at the back. I put everything back together; cone screws in very carefully, lined up with the respective holes, torqued snug. Or so I thought. I had pushed the front shifter bar all the way back to the shoulder in the U-joint on the rear shifter bar and tightened up on that. I filled up with the new gear oil and eagerly waited for the machining to get done on the head.

Monday, I got it all back together and jumped in to see how much fun the car would be with all those brand new bushings and new gear oil. I backed out, put it into first, accelerated towards second, pushed the clutch in and instead of catching second, all I got was that horrible, "NOPE! you missed it! grinding".

Back into first, and back home. I found my mistake with the cone screw, lined both holes up with my eyes this time, making sure there was no off-set between the two shifter rods and tightened it back in. I checked it very closely for signs of stripping on the screw and there were none and it seated with no resistance until it was supposed to. I also checked the welds on the shifter rods, and no breaks. The shifter itself seems to be in good working order and looks like the picture in the tech article although I have not disassembled it.

Now, it wont go into any gear AT ALL while the car is running. If I start it in gear with the clutch engaged, it acts like the clutch doesn't even exist and takes off. I have searched and searched for a similar situation, wracked my brain as to what could be the culprit and I am at a loss. I can't understand how I went from not optimal shifting but still operational to nothing at all after replacing parts that should have not only fixed all the play in second and fourth, but improved overall shifting as well.

I would welcome any and all input; I'm stumped.

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

Something's wrong with the clutch, not the transmission. Did you touch anything that is related to the clutch when you were fixing all of the other stuff?

Could be the little plastic cup bushing in the throw-out arm has failed; could be the cable is breaking and has stretched; could be the tube in the center tunnel has broken loose and isn't letting the cable move far enough...

Inspect the clutch tube at the firewall. Have an assistant push the clutch pedal and look for movement, especially in-and-out movement. Pull up the center tunnel carpet and look through the hole in the gear shift lever base. Look to see if the clutch cable moves side to side when you push the pedal in. If there's much movement at all, the front reinforcement has broken.

There could be other causes. Check that the pedal isn't rotating on the shaft through the pedal cluster. Inspect the clutch cable as much as you can--perhaps something is happening with the pulley wheel it goes around on the transmission?

--DD

[The cap'n]

There are a few causes that manifest themselves in this manner.. Exploded disc. Exploded pilot bearing. Broken fingers in the pressure plate spring. Disc stuck to the flywheel. Broken clutch tube welds.

The Cap'n