I have an 89 GTUs and i no longer have 5th gear and reverse is hard to get into. i basically have to ram reverse in to get it. to give you a little background on what happend... i was dicking around and i was shifting from 3rd to 4th and started to hear some grinding and couldn't get into 4th. so i put it in 3rd then shifted to 4th and it went in no prob. i parked the car for a little bit and tried to put the car in reverse to leave, and the shifted popped out of gear, i did this a few times and got pissed and forced reverse in and the car moved in reverse. i was curious about this so i shifted thru the gears and all were fine except 5th. my car will not go into 5th for the life of it. i think when i heard the griding while shifting i messed up 5th gear. but i could be mistaken. my question to you guys is what should i be looking at to replace or inspect? could it be the shifter itself (highly unlikely)? or should i just get another tranny? and if i have to get a tranny, are s4 and s5 trannys the same, well in the n/a case?

thanks alot guys,
Izzy

 

N/A Trannys are plentiful, S4's and S5's are similar but you need the transmission mount from the same series of transmission.

 

so your saying that all i'm gonna need if i go to an s4 tranny is a tranny mount? thanks for that bit of info.

 

Take the shifter off by removing its three bolts. Pull the shifter out. Clean out any debris in that area. The idea here is that the shifter uses plastic bushings that crumble over time, and it's POSSIBLE that your problem is related to that plastic getting in the way of the shifter.

Might be the case. Might not. Takes little time to do. No cost. And there's the assumption that the transmission fluid was not allowed to get low etc and in other words is full.

 

Correction, any mount will do. I have an S5 tranny on my S4 TII and all is fine.

They are backwards compatible.

 

yeah mine had a prob w/ secong and neutral was REALLY loose, to the point it scared me , thought the worst. but turnd out i just needed new platic bushings, cost less than 3 bucks..pretty easy fix, neutrals nice and tight now, but your prob seems a little more serious ...

 

IIRC, 5th and reverse are on the same shaft of the transmission. Sounds like it is replacement or rebuild time.

 

As HAILERS mentioned, sometimes the shifter bushings will break and cause a jamming of the shifter mechanism. This happened to me once. More likely, your 5th/reverse clutch hub went south, which would require a complete transmission rebuild to fix.

Good luck,

Hot_Dog
90 RX7 GXL

 

I had the exact same problem happen. The Detent ball on the drivers side popped out of place allowing the select lock spindle to pop through and press agains the selector itself keeping me out of 5th & rev. Luckily though it's serviceable while in the car. Remove the plate, take out the spring, and the lock spindle. Nose around under the selctor and pull the ball out. You SHOULD be able to get into 5th & Rev at that point.

Look @ the S4 FSM PG 7A-5 for the exploded view.

 

i'll definately have to try this. like you said its free.

 

well if what hailers said doesn't work, i'll try this. thanks guys.

 

to do this, would i have to remove the trans, or can it be done while trans is still attached to the car? i was also wondering if i could have possibly bent the 5th/reverse shift rod. i know that i'. most likely looking at getting another trans, and if the trans is shot, i'm gonna tear into it and see what exactly went wrong.

 

I was able to do it with the trans in the car. I believe my stubby racheting wrench set was what was able to get in there to get those two bolts out, can't remember though as it was near 2 years ago.

I suppose it is possible, although unlikely. I think that would require ALOT of force to bend one of them and at first blush reading your post I didn't get that impression.

 

correction...

no they arent

 

you can do it with the tranny in the car.

the SAME thing happened to me back in the day..............

do what titanium says, it should work for ya

 

well i will try to access those two bolts with the trans in the car, and if i can't get them, then the whole thing is gonna come out.

i guess your right about the shift rod, i didn't mash thru the gears or anything.

 

thanks man.

 

It would be highly unlikey to have a bent shift rod since the rods are 10 mm in diameter. Shift fork or retaining pin may have broken, but like I said earlier, it's probably the 5th/rev clutch hub. IIRC, Mazda had some problems with their clutch hub design for certain vin number vehicles.

Hot_Dog
90 RX7 GXL

 

thanks for that info. if i have to replace the trans, i will tear it open and inspect all that has been damaged. definately gonna look at the 5th/rev clutch hub.

 

I have the same thing on an 87 GXL...I'll give it a try.

Thanks for the heads up.

 

yea, turns out that i have a messed up clutch hub. o well, i got a new'ish trans in it. thanks again guys