Gearbox locked in Neutral

Hey Mike, sorry to hear about your troubles. Is there any movement at all forward and backward on the shift shaft? Side to side? Tried reverse yet?

 

Did anything fall down through the shift gate? This would be a good first place to look.

The early cars didn't have a boot (#52) to keep debris out. I've found a lot of coins and other trinkets in there. The "right" thing could jam it.
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We have to assume the shifting problem is directly related to 1)the battery short ,or, 2) the pull from tow truck wench. Yes?

 

Did the tow truck company try to put it into gear (or out of gear) while getting it on the truck? Perhaps it was difficult to shift and one of the tow truck guys inadvertently forced it in or out of gear, bending or breaking a piece in the mechanism.

Does the side to side movement in neutral feel as it should be? Is it not working with the engine running, or also not working with it switched off?

 

You should be able to shift it into gear with the engine off without the clutch just by lightly rocking the car so that would eliminate the clutch.

 

I do not think the problem is with the clutch. Like I said, normally, you can shift the gear shifter into gear with or without the clutch when the engine is not running. So if it will not move, the clutch has nothing to do with it. It does sound like something broke or bent in the shift linkage. I cannot imagine a connection to the grounded battery. I can imagine a connection to the wrecker truck towing the car. I think that you will know a lot more as soon as you get the bottom cover off the shift linkage cables. Not much more you can do until then.

 

I suspect that some part(s) got welded together in the battery incident.

 

Not that it could happen in this case.

Your problem reminded me of a 308 that was towed in one December day, that wouldn't shift.

His top didn't seal well and the shift tower had filled with water that was now ice.

Once it warmed up I drilled a small hole in the bottom so it wouldn't happen again.

 

Ok, well, that does eliminate the tow truck. I really doubt that this issue was caused by the battery problem. Sometimes, things just happen at strange times. Did you say whether or not you could move the shifter from side to side? When you move the shifter from side to side, you are also moving each shift cable back and forth in opposite directions. This rotates the shifting yoke at the end of the cables. When you move it forward or backward, you are sliding the shift yoke forward and backward. So knowing if you can move the shifter side to side would tell us that the shift cables are not frozen. That would mean that the problem is the shift yoke not sliding forward and backward for some reason. This could be that the yoke itself is jammed somehow or a problem in the gear box. Let's hope it is jammed yoke. Good luck.

 

Interesting! It sounds like something in the shift box itself may have broken. Because both levers coming out of the bottom of the shift box should move when you move the shifter side to side. So if only one side is moving, there is no way you can get it into gear because the shift yoke cannot be moved by only one cable. I think that you will need to pull your shift box out so you can take a look at the shift mechanism inside. The good news is that I really do not think it is the gear box. I have a spare shift box. I will try to make a video showing how the internal parts should be moving if everything is in good shape. That should help give you something to compare. I picked the shift box and shift cables up just to have on hand if something like this happened. I will try to get the video up later this evening. Thanks

 

I think I would be inclined to go along with Mitch here (post 10). I would guess that the shifter cables completed an electrical loop, heated up, and melted the braided cables into their housings. Easy to diagnose for yea or nay.

 

You'll need to remove underpanels #27 & #40 to have access to the cables. Miltonian might be on to something. If one cable was a high current path to ground, it could be stuck. That would cause the symptoms you have described. If not you should have a view of what else is wrong.

It is easier to disconnect the cables at the gearbox. You might try that to see if the shifter moves before removing all the nuts and screws on those panels.
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Sounds like a couple of the fingers on the pressure plate have broken off. How many miles are on her since the clutch has been done.

 

I thought the same - fingers on the pressure plate might be broken.

 

This would have nothing to do with the shifter not moving side to side. You can sit in your car and move the shifter from side to side without pressing the clutch. Something is wrong with either the shift box itself or a cable. After taking a look at my spare shift box, I really think it is something broken in there. Because if one of the cables was frozen by being welded in place or something, you should not be a able to move the shifter to either side. This is because as one leg of the shift box moves one way, the other must move the other way as the shifter is moved sideways. So if one of the cables was frozen, you should not be able to move the shifter sideways at all. I do agree that the first step is to remove the lower cover under the shift cables. The shift box is removed from the top of the floor pan. So that would mean removing the center console. Not fun.

 

LMAO!

Just exactly how would that affect the shifter?