Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Can't shift into 5th / reverse

That is kind of the way I am leaning because of the way it is acting. I'm going to do more troubleshooting this weekend to eliminate any possibility of it being in the shifer (in car) or cables.
I'm thinking it might be a shift lever problem at the transmission end. According to the weak drawings in the shop manual, it looks like there is some sort of an interface between the transmission internals and the external lever that the cables operate. If this is where the problem is, I wonder if this can be repaired/replaced w/o the huge PITA (and cost) of dropping the transmission from the car?
Either this or something in the shifter in the car. I thought of another test to eliminate this as a possibility. (Or prove that it is the problem. That would be nice, much cheaper!)

Does anyone know, if the gear selector mechanism (that's what the manual calls it) is removable w/o dropping the transmission?

BTW-
I had my wife stop at the dealer near where she works today to try and get the rubber bushings and retaining clips for the cable ends, and of course they told her they are not available as a seperate part. Gotta buy the whole shift cable assy. BS!!! Any Ford parts guys here who can help me here?

BTW2-
My wife told the service guy there what was going on and asked if the symptoms sounded familiar, perhaps he could give a guess as to what we are looking at.
He was sure he knew exactly what it was:
We need a throwout bearing, clutch pack, and pressure plate for about $900, plus whatever for any other problems they find while in there. Imagine that, a Ford service guy who is full of s***. My knowledge of transmissions is pretty weak, but the symptoms we have do not sound at all like a clutch related problem. No problems with anything other than 5th or reverse.


Thanks again,
Dave

Try running it till it gets good & hot then quickly changing the fluid in the trans.

just a thought.

?? ??

What would that accomplish besides some burnt fingers?

If you are SURE there is no issue with the cables or shift lever...1)remove the cables from the levers on the trans 2)unplug the reverse light switch 3)Take out ONLY the 10mm wrench size bolts that hold the 'tower;' onto the trans and lift it out...DONT DROP ANYTHING INSIDE THE TRANS!!!4)This will let you see the selector mech and the 3 brass shifter forks, you can then check for operation by moving the forks into each gear...if 5th/rev don engage with the tower off its a 'trans out' job...

Thanks Terry.
I'm going to do the troubleshooting this Sunday to prove/eliminate the shifter (in car) and cables. If they show good I will try that.

Just to be 100% sure (I'm about 95% now) you are talking about the assembly below the air intake/throttle cable, and it is just held on by a few 10mm bolts on top, right?

After I remove the selector assy. I should see the brass shift forks inside the transmission, and I should try manually operating them, right?

Any alignment issues when I go to reassemble it? Do the shift forks need to be put back in exactly the same position as they were when I pulled the selector assy. off? If so, what if they "moved" from being bumped as I remove the selector before I am able to see them? (View obstructed by the selector assy.)

Sorry for so many Q's, but I want to be sure of what I'm doing before I dive in.

Thanks again,
Dave

You can only remove/replace the tower with the tower levers in neutral(vert) and the selector forks in the box 'in line'(neutral)which form a vertical three layer slot...need Si sealer on tower when you replace/renew assy...

Thanks again,
I'm kind of hoping it does not come to that and I find that it is the shifter (in car). I'll post the troubleshooting results I get Sunday night.

Dave

It's nice to see that Ford and its dealerships are still jerking people around with this problem
I finally got rid of the SVT and bought a Honda (I loved the car...*hated* Ford and its dealerships). Anyway, after MUCH hassle, Ford replaced the clutch on my SVT and the car was fixed. This has been a common problem and Ford is either completely incompetent or purposely screwing its customers. I'm inclined to believe the latter. The best way I found to show them the problem is to have them shift with the car off and with the car on. Perhaps Mr. Haines can comment here, but I don't believe there should be a whole lot of difference.

It seems, from lots of posts on this subject, that a 'batch' of cars did have some bad clutches as a couple of owners went to the dealer and it was 'yes we know about it new clutch....under warranty.I think the problem is 'when'...if its out of warrranty you end up paying ,I think a TSB was posted on this some time ago also......

*UPDATE*

OK, this is strange.
Until yesterday, I was still having this problem. No worse, but never could get it into reverse. I've been working on trying to find the $ for a rebuild, and still driving the car 50-75 miles per day (delivery job).

The parking spaces I use at work have a slight incline to them, enough to roll back to get out of them when I park right up against the curb.

Yesterday, while pulling up to the curb, I misjudged and let the front wheels hit the curb a bit harder than usual. :rolleyes:
This jogged my memory (among other things ) to the fact that the only time I was able to get into reverse since this started, I think I hit the curb a bit harder that time too. (Not sure, but I think I remember it happening that way.)

So I decide to try putting it into reverse, which I have not tried for the past month or so. Yup, you guessed it, it went in just fine, and has worked fine since!

Any thoughts?
Is there any chance this is still an internal transmission problem, or am I back to looking at external issues? (That would be nice actually. Much cheaper I'm sure.)

Could this be related?:

A few months before the problem started, I had 3 of the 4 motor mounts replaced at the same time. Perhaps the Ford tech did not support things properly while the mounts were out, or did not do a drivetrain alignment afterwards. (I would assume such a procedure exists, and would be required after replacing 3 mounts at once.)

Any thoughts/ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Dave