hello all, i recently went home and was able to drive my (new to me) rx7. first let me start off saying that i loved the hell out of it! i was driving her one night though and was being quite rough on her. i was speed shifting and evadently did some damage to the tranny. the end result was that the car was stuck in first gear but the shifter would move around like it was in nuetral.

i didn't have a tool kit in the car yet so i called a flatbed and had it towed to a shop that i used to work at. i followed behind and when i got it in the shop i took off the center console and then removed the shifter. i couldn't really see anything (full of fluid) but the actual socket that the shifter fits into was stuck. i looked at the end of the shifter (ball) and i noticed that i had a couple notches on the end, so i cleaned that up.

i stuck the end of a scredriver in the socket and pulled back towards the neutral position and it poped right out like nothing was holding it in the position it was stuck in. then i reassemboled and tried to shift and it seem'd to work fine. the only problem is that there is an extreme amount of slack or looseness in the shifter now and after i actually drove it after this quick fix it was apparently harder to shift into fifth gear or sometimes it wanted to pop out of fifth gear.

do i need to take it out and replace it? do i need to send it off for a rebuild? has this problem happened to any of you? what are my options?

any help would be greatly appreciated!

thanks, mark

p.s. trans only has about 30k on it

forgot to give you car info........95 ssm r2..........oh yeah it's in my sig to

 

was there a plastic cup on the end of the shifter?

 

hey catch if you are talking about on the end of the actual ball end of the shifter.......no there was no plastic cup. i could not see the actual socket due to the amount of fluid in the housing.

 

Well there is supposed to be a plastic cup on the end of the shifter ball. That is what fits in to the shift rod and keeps the shifter tight.

 

hey catch.......thanks a lot. when i go back home i'll drain some of the fluid out and look for the missing piece. i will most likely buy an aftermarket short throw shifter to replace the current one in the car now.

thanks again for the help,

mark

 

I had a problem like this not to long ago. I snatched 2nd gear and broke a roll pin in the transmission, It would catch 1st and 2nd sometimes and other times it felt like there was no gear there at all. it was a simple fix but a pain in the ***. couldnt find the right size pin so i had to bore it out to fit a larger one. Hope its something simple, Good luck !!