darn shifter. 1st and Reverse always grind
 

i replaced all of the shifter bushings from the firewall, all the way to the back. I can find all of my gears, except it's hard to find 2-5 gears from neutral because I get a lot of resistance. I have to do this on order to align the synchros so that 1st doesnt grind. Is it possible that I may need a combo of clutch and shifter adjustments? I'm going to take it in but please warn me of anything that I might hear. It's actually not bad to drive, but it's hard to find the high gears from neutral in order to get it into 1st.

Have you tried adjusting the shifter? How far from the floor is the pedal when the clutch engages? Have you checked out the tech section?
(Tech Info Center flag at top of page)

A chimp could probably adjust the shifter and tighten the clutch cable

yeah i checked out the tech section. I'm not having any issues finding the gears once the car is moving, but at a standstill it wont go into any of the higher gears that easily, sometimes it will, sometimes it wont. I'll have to check on how far the clutch comes off the floor before it begins to clutch, tomorrow. as for the chimp thing, if that doesn't give a clue of how easy this should be, nothing will.

if you changed all the shifter bushings and still have all your fingers and both eyes, I think you can handle it, I did, was one of the first things I did, shifter bushings, but they were sort of in pieces, so it was obvious there was a problem.

I need to install my new clutch cable still, but it helped tightening it up. May want to get a new clutch cable right off, sometimes when you tighten them up, they snap

what sort of gear oil is in the transmission?

Could maybe need new trans or engine mounts. Once you are moving and the drivetrain is rockin and a rollin, the drivetrain geometry could be out of wack.

My bet is that your clutch needs adjusting.

--DD

I'm gonna replace the gearbox fluid tomorrow and tighten the clutch a bit. Does anyone have a step by step for clutch adjustment or is the haynes manual right for the job?

that's comforting!