so last night my friend was rowing gears while the car was just siting going in an out of all the gears and now im stuck in reverse, wonder if its the tranny all together or the shifter. help please.

 

its the trans i had that happen to me with 4 trans

 

no its not the trans its the fork may have gottin loose

 

try starting the car and try poping the clutch and thow in any other gear

 

i tried that, i saw a video its the the reverse ident in the tranny is locked cause the shifter is slipped past the point where its supposed to stop someone told me to look up transmission field repair for miata non turbo transmission its a video on how to fix it.

 

you can do it without pulling the transmission, the shifter fork came out of alignment...most likely your plastic shifter bushing is broken and the shifter had lots of play and slid out past the shift forks. You dont need a new transmission this is a very common problem and you simply need to
1. unbolt driveshaft and exhaust from downpipe back
2.removed neg on battery as always
3. pull shifter out of top of tranny
4.Drain tranny fluid
5. lower rear of transmission by removing factory trans mount
6. support transmission with jack and angle it downward
7. remove the 4 10mm on side of shifter housing to be able to use a punch and remove the shifter support piece from the shifter shaft. notethe piece that the shifter sits in has to be removed from the shaft that it translates the motion through to be able to remove the rear tranny housing)
8. Then remove sensors on rear tranny housing
9. remove tranny bolts for rear housing
10. slide rear tranny housing off
11. then clean surfaces of tranny housings
12. Play with rear housing so you can see the correct alignment that it needs to be installed at to align with the proper fork pattern. **( It sounds hard but you simply just twist the rear housing in your hands on the back of the tranny until the L piece of the shifter lines up with the slot for it)
13. After you figured out the right orientation to reinstall...put silicone black on the surfaces and install rear housing while properly aligning the forks with the shifter L.
14. Make sure to buy a Shifter rebuild kit with all the proper bushings when you re install otherwise you will be doing the same job in no time.
Real brief but there are better write ups on miata sites and such
your tranny is the same as a miata one
good luck

 

First look up about the same thing happening to a maita a guy hade some thing simpler happen to his fd and it fixed it

 

this is happening to me however in a different situation. i shave the shifter rod down an inch because i couldnt find the proper shifter housing for my tranny now that i have everything back together i cant move the shift tie rod end at all in order to shift through my gears anyone have advice

 

This happened to one of my friends before. He ended up kicking the shifter quite vigorously and it popped back in neutral. I can't say I recommend this but if you see yourself having to pull the trans anyway...

 

Yeah, my transmission is stuck in reverse as well FML

 

Sometimes smashing stuff is the solution, I find it works well with electronics

 

my husband is a bit confused about #7 can you help

 

get a new husband that understands???..(chuckle!)

It would not apply unless you have done that "mod" that the poster did.
Tommy26 posted info that is in the right direction for the solution.(post#5)
Another suggestion would be looking at the shifter HOLE itself,after pulling the shifter up and out of the trans.There is a possibility that a broken bushing could hang the shifter up and not allow it to shift.