wont go into 5th
 

I cant shift into 5th for some reason, all other gears work fine, its like theres something blocking 5th gear. i have a mazda racing shortshifter, which i took out and reinstalled, and torqued the bolts down, so i know its not just a loose shifter. id only been driving it for a few hours with the shifter installed(i just got my car put back together). what could the problem be?

only thing I can think of (other than an internal shifting fork problem) would be the spring assy thingy inside the shifter tower/ housing (left side)- but I think that might prevent you from going into reverse, too????

If you still got reverse I dout it will be the shift fork, you said you started getting this after you installed your short shifter, maybe you should learn how to shift with a short shifter, although I normally just find reverse to be hard to get into with a short shifter, not 5th.

try putting the stock shifter and see if you can get into fith, you can't but can still get into reverse could be something simple like droped durring shifter installastion and is keeping you from shifting in into fith. But I would check to see if you can get into 5th with a stock shifter.

But if your relize you don't have reverse, could be a shift fork which means rebuild tranny or find a used one.

okay, thats good then, because i can shift into reverse fine. it was shifting into 5th fine before with the short shifter though

well think of it this way...
before you put the short shifter in the fifth gear was kinda far from the third and fourth.
now it's more down to the right than usual.

I had the same problem.:)

i tried reinstalling the stock shifter, but it didnt make a differnce. mali, what turned out to be the problem?