legacycentral bbs

I just bought my new 91 BJ and it only has 5th gear. The owner says it is stuck in the Nuetral position but is stuck in 5th gear.

He said it was running fine in all gears untill one morning he went out to start her, pushed the clutch in, fired her up, the car lurched forward (with clutch dis-engaged) and now only has 5th.


Any thoughts?

She will be in my driveway tommorow night. The previous owner is driving it here. She is whinestone too... Did I mention I payed $100.00 for her??

maybe a broken shift fork somewhere. How the hell is he driving it there in fifth gear only? It'd take some major burnage of the clutch.

It may just be stuck in gear....once you drop it out of the car, you may be able to get it back.

My friend's VW had the same problem. It refused to go, and after dropping it out of the car, they figured out that it was just stuck.

Yes...major burnage of the clutch. I plan on replacing it anyways.

Thanks for your suggestions....any more?

glad I am not the one driving it there. Wow, that has got to suck on starts.
probably just a broekn fork or a linkage that is broken.

I bought it for $100 with the messed up tranny. Even if I have to fix the tranny or put in a different one with a new clutch...I am still doing good.

do you think it will damage the engine...if the driver has to rev to like 6000+ RPM on take offs, it cant be good on the internals.

I have faith...I used to beat the crap out of my old 5MT and it never let me down. I would redline that bad boy every chance I got. Then again that was with a load on it.

Stuck in 5th huh?

Well, it's nothing that can be fixed externally on the transmission, that's for sure.

A broken shift fork would do it, except you would probably hear the clanking from the broken fork and notice that the car won't continue to move forward for very long (shift forks blow up trannies). Though it's a slight possibility that this happened, I think it would be unlikely.

If the shifter hangs out in neutral, but the car is stuck in 5th, there would be 2 possible causes that I can see.

1) You broke the shift ARM. The gold piece that goes into the transmission has an arm on the other end. It looks like a putter. It could have broken the "tip" of this arm off, and the tranny happened to be in 5th gear when it happened (or shifting into 5th). To test if this is the case, see if you can move the shifter all around. You should be able to move it into and out of where the gears SHOULD be. I would imagine that if the arm were broken, it would be able to freely roam throughout the range of the shifters movement.

2) Some user mistake somehow. On dogboxes (and some synchro boxes), you can shift SO hard that the rod you are on carries through and continues into gear. Mostly happens on the 2-3 shift, the 1/2 rod travels forward after the arm is clear of the hook on the rod. This locks the tranny into 1st gear.

If this is what happened to you, I would bet he was doing a J-turn or something and I bet that'd do it. A VERY VERY high-stress shift out of Reverse. The way Reverse is setup, if you shift the 1-2 fork out of the neutral position, all tension will be lost on the reverse idler gear, and if the reverse synchro is damaged (from abuse or age), the car could pop out of Reverse. If it's violent enough, I could see the shift rod continuing past neutral and slamming into 5th gear before you could get the shifter into 1st.

At the same token, you don't even have to shift the tranny into 1st or 2nd, a violent enough shift OUT of Reverse may be enough to throw the 5/R rod into 5th gear.

The way to tell if THIS is the case, is if you can move the shifter in neutral only under the 1/2 and the 3/4 gates.

If Option 1 is the case, driving it may cause the peice of the selector arm to be picked up and flung into the gear teeth, causing blowing of the transmission.

If Option 2 is the case, you will burn the shit out of your clutch, but the fix for it is pretty easy.

It's not uncommon for high mileage Subaru's to have very worn and possibly damaged Reverse synchro's.

The only other potential thought I may have about this, is that he parked it, and it was HALF engaged in reverse. Engaged enough that the collar was on the balk and the synchro engaging, but the reverse idler wasn't between the 1/2 collar and the input shaft. Starting it like this (espically if the clutch cable is improperly adjusted, so that the clutch is slightly engaged, even though the pedal is fully depressed), would have the flywheel attempting to spin the input shaft. The way the balk teeth are designed on a synchro (pointed), the spinning input shaft could actually have kicked the collar forward pretty violently. What makes me think this actually might be the case, is that the car sat overnight. The fluid was drained mostly out, and there was very little lubrication on the synchro. Lots of friction between the brass balk ring, and the actual synchro material means high-grip, and turning the input shaft (thus the shift collar) when the synchro doesn't want to spin... it might (in theory) kick it hard enough forward that it could shift into 5th gear.


Like I said, lots of possibilities. Difficult to say without seeing the tranny opened up, or at least knowing the FULL data log of what exactly the car is doing.

I'm getting it tonight so I will let you know exactly what I see on it tommorow.

He told me he went out to drive the car to work, got in, pressed the clutch to the floor, started it and then it lurched forward and died with his foot still to the floor on the pedal. He started it up again and now it only has 5th gear. The guys is a subaru nut like we are and this was his daily driver. He also owns a sweet OBW.

Thank you for the info Phill. It's good to know we can turn to people with your level of knowledge.

I may not be right, but it's food for thought.

The fact that he could start the car again after it did this, and now it's stuck in 5th is odd.

Well I was supposed to take possesion of the vehicle tonight but he couldn't make it. Tommorow is out because I will be out of town for work...maybe I will have it Thursday.

Wait -- the clutch is stuck engaged and the gearbox is stuck in 5th?

Nope. The clutch works fine....just stuck in 5th.

So the car lurched forwards when the engine was started, even though the engine wasn't connected to anything?

Thats what I hear.... weird!

I drove down today and got the car. The guy tells me it only has fifth gear and insists on pushing me out of the parking lot as he says there is no reverse. So I put it in fifth and drive off slowly. I drove it a few miles in 5th and it blows!!!

I was sitting at a light and out of curiosity I dropped it into first....and it went....second...still going...third..yep...fourth..uh-huh...we all know fifth is there. Drove it home over 100 miles and had no problems. Well the brakes are toast.

On the way home I saw a gen1 legacy that had just spun out and smacked the guardrail. Part of me wanted to stop and see if they wanted to sell it now but that would have been a dick move. I will just buy it from the tow yard.Besides...the cops just pulled up too.

So why did he think it only had fifth? Was this one of those things that if you believe it hard enough, your mind makes it true or something?

When my transmission went it lost 3rd. Just wouldn't select it. Then it started working again with no indication of a problem. A few days later the input bearing started rumbling. There are times, though, where my shifter is a little recalcitrant due to what feels like worn shifter bushings, like it won't go in. Maybe it's a similar exaggerated problem.

Steve

Yeh, i could see that. When i broke the 3-4 shiftfork, i thought the transmission was all locked up as i couldnt get it into any gear. A few days later i tried again and found i could get it into gear, it was a little weird.

The shifting is real sloppy. I mean real sloppy. There is basicaly no down shifting into 3rd.

I'm thinking I need to change out some bushings somewhere.

There is a lot of work that needs to be done to this car before I would consider it road worthy.

This is going to be my project car. I forgot to mention....it's AWD!!! I didn't know that when I bought it. I paid the dude via paypal 2 weeks ago.

sounds like the clutch is messed up, and the dude didn't have the balls to pull it out of gear without the clutch working, thus "only fifth gear"

I'd check the clutch linkage thoroughly, maybe something is fouled up there

or perhaps the shift linkage is so bunged up its getting jammed, but I can't see how that would make the car lurch forward with the clutch pedal depressed

sounds like you got a deal to me. the "problem" that made my car undriveable, and thus it was dumped, was two radically bent front wheels, and useless bulged tires

The clutch is strong...it pulls hard. I could roast the tires if I wanted to.

I just need to go in and rerplace some stuff so it behaves the way it should.

Roast tires on an AWD!?

You wouldn't think so but when I say it pulls hard I mean...it pulls hard!

It feels like a new clutch. It wouldn't take much to wind it up and drop. I could see no chiping on an auto AWD but this thing has balls. My FWD auto will chirp every now and then.