Transmission Chaos

[almac]

what a day. i feel like screaming.


cruised into town today and stopped at staples. the drive there was fine.
jumped back into the deli, and the manual transmission wouldn't go into reverse.
the shifter moves through all the gears, EXCEPT reverse...


no grinding or anything. clutch all the way in... nothing.
opened the hood(tossing my center console storage items all over, i was PISSED!). everything looked ok.
i took the cover of the shift lever to check to see if the linkage was binding or something... everything looks ok.
car in front of me pulled away, so i checked my other gears. 1-5 works fine, so i drove from kelowna to vernon. I HAD to be in kelowna(job related).
other than the occasional grind when downshifting into 4th(probably my technique), everything was ok. i wonder if the 4th gear pop out problem i have been having is related? whenever i take my foot off the gas in 4th, the trans pops into neutral...
as usual, the shop i usually frequent was busy as hell. my regular mechanic took the day off. other guy said he might be able to look at it on wednesday. *sighs*
went over to a friend's place to borrow his foot. he tried to shift into reverse while i looked underneath at the transmission linkage. everything looked ok.
my baby still won't go into reverse...


so is my tranny screwed?

[loki]

my guess would be the linkage is bent a bit or loose at either or both ends.

[almac]

from what i could see under it, the linkage looks ok.
i layed down under it tonight and watched the travel of the linkage in all gears.
strange thing was that the reverse 'throw' doesnt go all the way.
i tried to manually shift the reverse gear from underneath, and nothing.

think a shifting fork inside the tranny is bent or something?

[Modsqwad]

Does the stick go into the reverse gate or is it binding up and stopping the stick from going in? If it goes in but there is no reverse
engagement it may be a bent shifter fork. If it won't go in at all it may be a problem with a shifter rail or detent ball on the rail. Neither
is probably the end for the tranny. If it was really bad in there you would not have been able to drive it home. If you can get a look at
the oil in there it would help (lots of metal flake being a bad thing) Good luck.
Andy Wilson

[almac]

Does the stick go into the reverse gate or is it binding up and stopping the stick from going in? If it goes in but there is no reverse
engagement it may be a bent shifter fork. If it won't go in at all it may be a problem with a shifter rail or detent ball on the rail. Neither
is probably the end for the tranny. If it was really bad in there you would not have been able to drive it home. If you can get a look at
the oil in there it would help (lots of metal flake being a bad thing) Good luck.
Andy Wilson

it won't go in at all.
can you please explain what the "shifter rail" or the "detent ball on the rail" is?
if i knew what it was, and how to get to it, i could go hunting for it myself.

thanks andy.

[Modsqwad]

Does the stick go into the reverse gate or is it binding up and stopping the stick from going in? If it goes in but there is no reverse
engagement it may be a bent shifter fork. If it won't go in at all it may be a problem with a shifter rail or detent ball on the rail. Neither
is probably the end for the tranny. If it was really bad in there you would not have been able to drive it home. If you can get a look at
the oil in there it would help (lots of metal flake being a bad thing) Good luck.
Andy Wilson

it won't go in at all.
can you please explain what the "shifter rail" or the "detent ball on the rail" is?
if i knew what it was, and how to get to it, i could go hunting for it myself.

thanks andy.

The shifter rail is a round metal bar that engages the stick and has one or two shifter forks attached to it. The rail slides back and forth
when pushed by the stick and the forks slide collars along the main shaft of the tranny to lock different gears to the shaft. The detent balls drop into grooves in the rail to hold it in the centered position. They are all internal so looking from the outside won't
help. Probably needs the tranny out to get at it. But the good news is that it can be fixed without rebuild or replace the whole
transmission. Before you drive much further you should check the oil. If its got too many shiny metal flakes floating around in it
there may be more wrong than it seems and you should not drive it any more until its repaired. Suerte.
Andy Wilson

[jessef]

Disconnect the shift linkage at the transmission

Jack up the Delica so that ALL four wheels are evenly off the ground and the whole vehicle is supported by either a hoist or proper weighted jack stands.

With all four wheels off the ground and the shift linkage disconnected at the trans, have someone push the clutch down and go through the shift points at the transmission directly.

That will tell you whether or not it's the linkage (between trans and shifter) or transmission internal/ like Andy said.

And try not to be PISSED !!!!

Nothing good will come out of it. By being upset or angry, you may miss something or screw something up. Not good.

Just keep a cool head, take a step back and look at things from a different perspective. There's more ways than "PISSED" to look at things.

Good luck

[Meanman]

On the delica tranny, does 4th gear and reverse share the same synchro ring and shift fork? I had a similar issue years ago with a CJ5.