legacycentral bbs

so I was on my way to work crusing at about 75 i 4th and went to shift into 5th and next thing i about shifted into third. got to work. after work I was leaving and i had to reverse but it kept putting me into 4th no matter how hard i kicked it over. please tell me my summer is not going to be ruined

So did you actually get it into 5th? Reverse on the factory tranny on a lot of our cars can be a bugger. Sometimes you have to let the clutch out and roll the car a touch to get it in.

no i had to drive on I-85 with it in 4th

That sucks.

How old is your clutch, are your cable and bushings in good repair? When my clutch went I could not engage any gears at all, but that was a hydrolic unit. Maybe you just have a problem with a bad bushing? You may want to look at the tranny fluid as well, change it if you dont know when it last was changed and check the plug for metal debris. When this initially happened did you hear any grinding noises? If it was the syncro you would likely hear it when attempting to engage. Does it grind in reverse? BAC5 has mentioned before that 5th is separate from 1-4 & R so maybe youll get lucky and find its nothing big.

maybe at most 5 years. the bushing on the shifter is bad but i do not know about the other ones. dont know how to check the cable. i hope it is just a bushing. it only grindes when i try to move it to reverse sometimes and sometimes when i try to go to 5 but that is because it is going into 3rd.

Well if I understand things correctly, the cable would affect things the same as if your clutch was bad, you would have issues in every gear. Id start with the fluid, drain and check the plug. It takes as much time as a regular oil change and costs about the same. This will give you a chance to look at the plug and fluid to inspect for bits of metal or syncro. Thats where Id start. Also look at posts by the user BAC5, you may have seen him already, he is quite adept at transmission issues and knows more than just about anyone Ive met in that area.

Oh, and I have the bushings you would need to fix the side to side slop, so if you need them let me know!

I bet this has something to do with hacking off half of the shifter.

no i only cut where the threads are. i would take picture but am an idiot at getting that image thing to work.

I understand what you did. I did the same thing in my 93 impreza. It borked my gearbox, and was hard to shift.

fixed it. bought shifter bushing from Subaru dealership for 6.50 each. only needed two. dont have shifting problems anymore.

its amazing what a difference new bushings make. I just finished doing this to my car. what a world of difference. it feels like a new car!