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gearshift locks up in neutral

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longbridgehealey

longbridgehealey

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My 1966 sprite will go through all the gears, drive without any problem, then lock up in neutral at any given time. If you let it sit for about ten minutes, it releases and shifts again. Fluid is full. Any ideas?
 
Mine does this sometime, except it may get stuck in a gear as well as N! I find that if I shift too fast that is what caused my problem, almost like everything gets out of sync or something. I am curious as to what the suggestions are to this problem.
 
It's odd, it never gets stuck in gear, just in neutral. I was hoping for some ideas before I started tearing things apart. Once I start, I'm afraid of where it might lead!
 
N is so much better in gear, at least you can roll it and not get stuck at a light in the dark with no tags on (because you were just test driving it to see if everything was working before you go get tags!) seriously, that is where mine left me. I thought me and the little car were going to get hauled off to jail because we had no license plates!

I know that mine was getting stuck in gear when I swapped the tranny but my issue was a backing plate. You know have you looked at the slave cylinder to make sure that you are getting full travel of that little arm? Mine was traveling OK but was bent and that was affecting things so had to bend it straight. I know I also had to bleed bleed bleed my clutch after I replaced the cylinder to get things moving properly. Almost sounds as if the car gets hot and that is when the problem starts?
 
I'll check the travel on the arm tonight. Nope, it doesn't care if it's hot or cold, sometimes it will lock up when it has been sitting for hours. You jump in it, and no shifting out of neutral.
 
You will probably have to remove the tranny to fix that, but the first thing I would check is that all the shift-fork set-screws are tight!! (Accessed through the side cover - except for one of them -I think- reverse which is accessed from the bottom of the tranny)!
 
You mean... it won't select a any gear or it grinds trying to go into gear? I'm not sure how it would jam in neutral unless the shifter dog is getting hung between the selectors in the remote. I dunno, it has been a long time since I had a spridget gearbox apart.
 
Won't select any gear, will travel left to right, but not into gear - no grinding, just blocked from moving into gear.
 
I'll check the screws tonight - thanks!
 
The screws go in a bit of an indent so is easy to get em right.
 
Thanks, Jack
 
OK, hre's the update. Checked everything mentioned above, all appeared to be fine. The only thing we found was, when we removed the shifter, there was a missing o-ring or gasket that went into an indent, about 2/3s of the way down the shaft. Ordered the ring, put it on, replaced the shifter, and it's shifted fine ever since. But I don't understand how that little gasket could have anything to do with it. I don't know for sure that its cured, its only been a day, plan to take it out again tonight. But for about a 20 minute stop - start type of drive last night, it worked fine. Strange??
 
Haha, seems it was designed by engineers. Strange how that happens.
 
Hi, Jack - I'm still not convinced it was the gasket. Maybe even the simple act of removing the shifter and replacing it jiggled something loose, who knows. We'll see what happens tonight when we drive it again. Here's hoping all is well!
 
There is a potential that your indent plungers are not being lubricated. They are up high in the trans and don't get splashed very well. If you are using detergent (common) oil then I would recommend using NON-detergent oil (30 or 40 weight). The non-detergent type will foam up and lubricate the entire transmission and possibly cure your shifting problem.
Bill
 
I don't know, I guess the gremlin has moved on. We took it out for an hour last night, plenty of stop and go, shifting up and down through the gears, and she works great.
 
Excellent, ain't it fun.
 
these cars drive me nuts, but yep, it sure is fun!!
 
You got to love it when that happens! A fine fix that is. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif
 
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