Let me give you the backdrop to my situation. Few days ago, I've been experiencing a bunch of shaking and vibration in 1st gear or just getting the car going. I had planned to look under the car after I had taken care of some business when my driveshaft snapped. The front U-Joint. Also my the shifter case or Control lever case snapped off too (believe the driveshaft hit it when it broke). Well I got both those things and installed them yesterday.

My problem now is that my shifter is EXTREMELY hard to manuever or get into gear. Also it won't go into 1st 3rd or 5th at all. It goes into 2nd and 4th with some force and haven't really tried Reverse.

What could be the cause? I was in first for a few seconds when the driveshaft snapped. Could I have ruined the clutch or pressure plate or *gasp* could my tranny be shot???

89 FC btw...

 

Check the bearings.

Turbo or Non?

 

control lever case broke off? wow... change um

 

NA. Guess I'll have to take everything apart.

 

Dosent hirt to check fluid too..

 

Thanks. Glad I at least got some response.

 

Yea i know it happens some times. Do you have the Factory Service Manual(FMS)?

 

When I absolutely couldn't get in gear, it was a shot clutch. Lining fell off the disc.

 

The input shaft bearing and pilot bearing are worn on my car. When I get everything nice and to operating temp, my clutch likes to bang around and chatter a bit. I got used to it and now I can drive the car like everything is fine.

I messed both of those bearings up when I first got the car unfortunately. The bushings where worn out in the shifter and so being used to a good clean manual, I had a hard time hitting the sweet spots when shifting. Well, I did a WOT pull from a stop sign one day and instead of shifting into 4th, I shifted into second.

 

just get it on a hill and see if the clutch disengages. probably the syncros though since 1st and 3rd use the same one

 

First and third do not use the same synchro. First gear is almost on the other side of the transmission from 3rd. 3rd gear is on the front of the input shaft.

 

I have the fsm. Been looking over it and over it. I looked on FC3SPro.com at their tech section which helps a lot more. I can seem to get it in 2nd 4th 5th reverse somewhat in 3rd but absolutely no 1st and all gears are hell to get into and out of back to neutral as if the shifter was stuck everywhere even in neutral.

The clutch does seem questionable to me too. As it doesn't help ease the process of shifting even with the car off...

 

It is usually actually somewhat harder to get the car in gear with the engine not running, since the shaft isn't spinning to align the hubs. If you can get it into gear without the engine running, go back to neutral and go back into that same gear again, it should be a lot easier.

If the shifter is hard to move in neutral, that sounds strange. Maybe you have pieces of bushing binding up the works in the shifter housing?

 

I may have found the problem as the why the shifter is hard to move around. When I changed the extension housing (control lever case) there's that "select-lock spindle" and steel ball that the control lever end (mazdatrix refers to it as trans shifter end) to lean on. I think i inserted that wrong.

I'll post back at the end of today with results