While driving my FD aggressively around some local twisties this afternoon, car sort of came out of gear and has "stuck" in second. The gear shifter moves around freely with absolutely no resistance through all the gates as if it's not attached to anything. Trans was opened up and 5th gear synchro was just replaced by a local rotary specialist a few hundred miles ago if that helps shed any light. TIA.

 

Obviously something broke. It may be internal, like the 1st/2nd shift fork. But I think I'd first open the shifter housing, carefully syphon the gear oil out and check things. There's stuff like the shift selector that are secured with roll pins that could break.

 

Certainly sounds like a linkage issue vs something internal to the trans. That would be good, because you can likely fix it from the top w/o pulling the trans.

 

So some of the linkage is actually accessible under the inspection cover (4 12mm bolts)? The front two bolts look like they will be a bitch to get to as a socket wont fit on them since they are partially underneath the front corners of the trans tunnel.

 

I want to say they’re 10mm and if you use a 1/4” drive ratchet with an extension you SHOULD be able to reach them. If they’re Still too hard to reach then I suspect motor mount/PPF issues.

 

When doing the 5th gear synchro you have to undo the roll pins that hold the selectors for the shift forks in. Most likely part of that assembly didn't get put together right or a roll pin was missed or something.

Unfortunately there's no way in hell you're fixing that in the car. Transmission will have to come back off and the back of the trans will have to come off.

The ONLY "easy" fix that it could be would be the cup the shifter sits in, it's held in with a roll pin as well. You could just remove the shift lever and test that out, but I have a feeling the whole deal will need to come out seeing how floppy that shift lever is.

Dale

 

Bingo! missing or broken roll pin in the linkage. Now to get this cover off and hopefully fish out the pieces. Anybody know the size/specs of the correct roll pin?