shifter linkage left me stranded (x-post)

[gtroth]

Nice night for date-nite with my wife last evening - until on a shift I noticed a little "twist" play - one or two shifts later, shifter flopped around seemingly disconnected. Coasted to the side of the road, stuck in neutral luckily. Nice night waiting for a flat bed (to tell the truth, was sort of nice...).

Car's in my garage about to go up on stands for a looksy - I searched, but found nothing good about how to diagnose and fix shifter linkage. Any one know what to look for and what to do?

Cheers.

[exitwound]

Where did the disconnect come from? The linkage connects to the lever by a simple e-clip and washer. Carefully remove the shifter boots and look beneath to see if it just popped off. If you had a case of the twisties, I'd expect it to be at the front where it disconencted, not back at the transmission.




Images courtesy of Clarks-Garage.com

Head on over to Clarks-Garage for a complete method of checking the shifter linkage.

[gtroth]

--yup, circlip is missing. Off to Home Depot. Looks like 3/8" will fit it. Don't know why I didn't find that Clark's page - impatient I guess...
Many thanks.

[Dave L]

I had this happen on a BMW e30 once, it was stuck in 5th gear. I left it until night to drive it the few KM's home. I gotta tell you starting from stop lights in 5th creates quite the stink and Im sure I took years off the clutch lining!

[gtroth]

--good to go. Used a 3/8" e-clip (didn't have c-clips - I'd like to try that, might fit better...), 7/16" was too big and popped off, which didn't leave me all that comfortable with the 3/8"...

Anyway, I recommend we all carry an extra 3/8" clip next to our spare DME relays.

Thanks again.

[many944s]

Originally Posted by Dave L

I had this happen on a BMW e30 once, it was stuck in 5th gear. I left it until night to drive it the few KM's home. I gotta tell you starting from stop lights in 5th creates quite the stink and Im sure I took years off the clutch lining!

Ditto! Happened on my e30 twice. The first time, it was stuck in third and the factory clip was gone. I decided to replace it with a standard e-clip. About a month later I lost that one... that time in neutral Finally broke down and bought one of the factory clips for like $2 and paid $8 for shipping. ugh!!

[gtroth]

OK - 3/8" e-clip is not right. Popped of about a week after I installed it. Happened on the way to home depot believe it or not. Was able to pull over and fix it quickly this time. While I was in there this time I found the original and it's much closer to (but not exactly) 5/16". Which works nicely so far, but I've ordered original p/n to be sure.

On the one hand, I'm pissed that the car can be disable by an e-clip failure (come on). On the other hand, it did last 20 years and 155K miles.

[exitwound]

I put the original back on mine because it popped itself off. However, my linkage didn't disconnect from the lever. I noticed the extreme slop though and inspected it and yup, e-clip had popped off.