Stuck in Gear

Hello,

Stupid van. I fixed one thing this morning and just 3 miles later something else goes wrong. I swear that I've spent more time under the drivers seat than in it this summer.

Anyway . . . my van is stuck in second gear. I was driving around and and I pulled into a parking lot in 2nd gear, and there it stuck. Visually, the shift lever looks to be in neutral. But it won't move very far. The clutch engages and disengages fine, and I can drive in okay in 2nd gear. I crawl under the van and try shaking and pulling the shift linkage and it won't budge (the outboard one, the inner one moves okay).

This isn't the first time the van has stuck in gear. But the other 2-3 times I've been able to crawl underneath and shake/pound the linkage loose. I just don't have that luck this time.

Any suggestions on getting it loose?
Any suggestions on keeping it from happening again?

Thanks!
Jason

Hey man iam having the same problem need help too its so let me know when you find out!!

I'm laughing, not at you 2 but at the fact that every, yes every new, old 1st gen owner has the same learning curve with the manual trans. It's fairly routine for me and someday I'll replace the linkage bushings but unless I'm wearing my sunday clothes it just makes me luv my van more, yeah it's a little nuts. Anyway, what works for me is 1st setting the park brake and then shaking both shifting arms until they move freely, in opposite directions. I swear the arms are polished now! LOL

Jerry

Okay, so try shaking it loose when the vehicle isn't trying to roll against the transmission. That makes sense. The parking brake isn't that great, but I have chocks in the back.

So it's the shifter bushings that cause that? I greased the heck out of them in the spring. Is there a place to go to buy replacements?

I think the good Lord is looking out for you if your parking brake isn't working properly. Just consider if you had shaken the linkage free and you were on any type of hill???


Jerry

My 65 supervan had the same problem.
I replaced all the shift linkage plastic washers ..
shift column too
lined up the arms (they were a little bent)
cleared the bars of any body sheet metal
set the shift levers with the pin at the floor
all according to the book...
Hell, at the time I was using the Chilton's Book
worked fine after that
Oh, when I put everything back together, I noticed the end of one of my shift rods was a little worn...there was a lotta slop at the 90 degree turn..went to the junkie and got a newer one.
That's where I should have started...The junkie...because it looked like the junk van was better than my van.
Hope that helps..
Right now with 100,000 miles on my truck, I look at the speedo of the vans in the junkie...especially for the hard to find plastic washer, suspension, and linkage parts.
Jim aka Casimier in NJ

Many of us have lived long enough to know its all usually a "wear part" problem somewhere . In our archives are just about everythingt we could possible encounter & have to repair on our vans.Thats what is grteat about this group.

I crawled underneath again, on flat ground with the park brake set, and shook and shook and shook and shook and shook. And the lever wound't come loose. My wife got in and held the clutch down while I pushed it backward put of the parking space. When I got back in to drive forward, it had come out of gear.
So, for today that problem has been fixed.
For the long term, when it happens again I'll have to come back to this thread to figure out the solution. The lock-out thing may also be the issue. Although the bushings probably need to be replaced anyway.

Back to this problem. It does seem to be a lock-out issue. I've been getting stuck in gear more and more often the past week. Yesterday it happened twice just to get our of the driveway. I have always been able to get it unstuck by moving the inner linkage to neutral, then the other one loosens up.

So, how to I fix this issue where it's not coming out of gear. Is it internal to the transmission? Or back to the linkage bushings.

look @ bushings 1st & also at all rod & shift bar areas -in trans as last resort -likely only all external./

For years mine would get stuck in 1st, once in a while, and no problem to go underneath and work it loose. Eventualy took care of that problem by replacing the 2 "spring washers" in the shift column. They are available at McMaster-Carr -part # 9715K91 -you have to buy a pack of 10. The old ones looked ok but had lost there tension.

I used to have a lock-up problem shifting from 1st to 2nd. At the time I had lots of warn parts and no cash to fix them.

While moving from 1st to neutral I was pushing down to find the neutral spot. It hit the neutral fine, but would not go into 2nd.

I found that if I instead lift up and move to where neutral is and then push it down through neutral, it never locked up.

That might help until you get parts replaced.

its the same with all three on the tree
stay in the H pattern and it won't lock up its when you try to slip diagonally through the neutral that the slop in the worn parts lets you move the linkage without taking it out of the last gear