just bought a 1990 rx7. when i got it it drove fine and went n to all the gears fine. i got it towed to my house n the guy was hauling @ss. now it is stuck n reveres and it will go n 1st buy wont move. when i try to see if it will go n to 3,4or 5 it wont go n . Do i need a new tranny or r the shifting bushing gone.
any help would b great thanks.

 

I would think that it would still go into gear even with totally worn shifter bushings but I may be wrong. That seems pretty unusual that it would shift fine before the tow but not at all after the tow. WTF? The first S5 I bought was stuck in reverse and I did have to change the transmission, sorry.

 

Maybe a silly question, but I don't want to assume...so...

Was it towed with the rear wheels on the ground? If so, they didn't use a dolly to keep the rear wheels off the ground? If no dolly - they should have disconnected the driveshaft at the back (front of the diff.). It's not enough to put the tranny in neutral, because the output shaft (inside the tranny) will still be spinning.

How far, and how fast was it towed?

If the above is accurate, they better start sourcing a tranny for you, because they should know better - you shouldn't have to tell them how to tow a rear wheel drive car.

The FSM (in my sig.) will show what I mean regarding towing. Let us know how it goes.

 

bad tranny

 

I actually have a car here right now with this same issue...was normal, then got stuck in reverse. Now you can shift it normally into any gear you want, or neutral...but no matter where you put the stick, when you let the clutch out, it is still in reverse and the car moves backwards.

The trans has to be taken apart, or replaced.

Several years ago I parted out another NA with the same failure.

Towing a manual rx7 with the drive wheels down is no issue at all, provided there are proper fluids in the drivetrain. I have dollied MANY rx7s up to hundreds of miles with the drive wheels down and never had issues. If it is a RWD automatic, then yes you cannot tow it without dropping the driveshaft or pulling it backwards with the drive wheels off the ground.

 

Could it b the the shifter part that conects to the tranny? When he dorped it it rolled forward? so i dont think i had it n gear.

 

It doesn't matter if the rear wheels are on the ground if the transmission is in neutral. Whether the transmission internals spin from the input shaft or from the output shaft is inconsequential to transmission wear, so long as there is fluid in the tranny. If the trans is left in gear, however, the engine will spin proportionally to vehicle speed, and dsepending on the gear selected and tow speed, engine damage can occur.

The transmission will need to be dissassembled.

 

yea the tranny will need to be disassmbled. I've had this happen before. what happens is the shift linkage (im not sure if thats the right terminology) is stuck in reverse. take it apart and tap the shift linkage with a hammer and it should come right out.

Then test if it will lock in reverse again. Make sure the reverse sensor has a o-ring on it that can cause the tranny to lock in reverse. and make sure all your bushings and shift springs are good.

 

NOOO. The transmission does not need to be dissassembled. This happenned to me once. The shifter fork is stuck on the reverse switch that goes into the tranny housing. Remove it and you can pry the fork loose and you can do this without even removing the transmission.

 

lol. that happened to mines once, and the infamous Fuego racing, hit the shifter with a rubber mallet and it took all gears like normal lol

 

I am experiencing the same problem I believe. My car is stuck in reverse and my shifter will only let me go into first and second, although it stay engaged in reverse and I can select reverse. I would like to try Dltreezan solution, but does anyone know what he means by shifter fork? Or know what it is i am to be prying and how to get to it?

I tried hitting the shifter with a rubber mallet nyc_scorpio, it didn't work. Although I was curious what direction were you hitting the shifter? I hit it downwards because it seemed risky to try to hit it into the gears it didn't want to go in. In retrospect hitting it downwards probably didn't do anything.
Thanks

 

The transmission I am using now was shipped to me stuck in TWO gears. It was in reverse and 2nd, and the result was the shifter would barely move & the input/output shafts would only turn a little bit then stop. You may have a similar problem.

Drop the transmission, and pull the tail housing off. Once it is off, you'll see 3 shift rods that each have an arm on the end (than manual calls them "rod ends"). The control lever that is connected to the shifter has an arm on the end of it, as well, that moves underneath these 3 shift rod arms. The movement of the shfter and control arm pops the 3 rods forward or backward & into gear. 2nd, 4th & Reverse are forward, and 1st, 3rd & 5th are backwards (movement is opposite of shifter movement). Check that all of the rods are in the center position, or only one is forward or backwards. You can push/pull the rods to shift the transmission by hand.

 

he is having the same problem I have and it happens more often than you know. My solution is the correct one.

 

And what solution is that? You didn't post anything.

 

This happened to the previous owner of my car, and he had the trans rebuilt.

Basically, the reverse idler gear gets stuck into postion, so when the shifter is in neutral, the car will reverse. Seleceting any other gear you can will cause the trans to sieze and will kill the engine because it cant physically turn like that.

Drop the trans and fix the reverse idler or of course you can try and ghetto it and kick yourself in the face later.