took car to work- fun until it stuck in 2nd gear! well good test for the new radiator as i wound out 2nd continuously! what is a likely cause? saginaw 4 speed with good looking internals. shifter went to neutral but trans stayed in 2nd. no grinding. all shift rods still present. 4 speed saginaw, hurst shifter
Common prob with the Muncie and worn linkage, saginaw same scenario id imagine, go under car and stand arms back up two are trying too engage at once, burnt the hell out my arms many times in high school when my 70 455 4speed would hang up, if thats not it id imagine a fork is broke
My friend's Dad's '68 Camaro does the same thing. Gets hung up in second. Go under the car and wiggle or pry something in the linkage and all is good again until it sticks again. He had it down to a science and knew what shifter movement to avoid to keep from doing that, but I don't recall what it was.
Cool come to think of it, my linkage is cobbled together hodge podge that worked ok while getting car on the road, but now I have to make it quality. I have to get under there to weld my exhaust as well, so I got some work ahead.
I have seen the arms that hold the shift levers on the trans. that internally lead to the shifter forks loosen up & now the linkage won't move or is very sloppy. Make sure the levers are attached properly. They fit into little oblong squares onto the shifter forks.
Go underneath and see if the 1-2 shift lever on the trans is all the way in neutral, or still towards 2nd. I had 2 different Richmond 5 speeds that would get stuck in second on the 2-3 shift. The problem was the shifter wasn't pulling all the way out of 2nd, and the trans wouldn't let it engage any other gear. The fix was the shorten the 1-2 shift rod a little. As mentioned, slop/too much play anywhere can cause the same issue.
This is exactly what happened, the bolt on the 1-2 arm loosened and rectangular opening in arm disconnected. Tightened it up, good to go. A little discerning since there's a lockwasher under the bolt head, but maybe I'll replace that with a new one (big spender I am!). I guess I got the best scenario of something like this going wrong, as it got stuck in 2nd gear and not neutral or some other gear where I couldn't limp home. I would wind 2nd out to about 35mph and push the clutch in and coast for a little, then give it gas and let it out and scream the motor a little further, like that on and off. I'll take it out tomorrow and resume romping...
My 4 speed did the same thing after driving it a few miles. It would stick in third gear so I crawled underneath and found one bolt was loose, tightened it up and 20 miles later same thing so I took the bolts out and hit them with blue lock tight. After two years and 4,000 miles all is still good,
