280 ZX Wierd Tranny Trouble Plz Help!

[danman_83]

Hey,

I got a 1980 280ZX about 5 years ago, and when I first got it, the transmission broke, so i took it to Aamco(mistake number 1) and they fixed it, and about 4 years later it broke again...

Whats happening is that when I drive it a little bit hard or if I drive it normal for about 3 weeks, I will turn the car off, leaving it in first gear.

Then when I start the car, I put it in Reverse, but the transmission gets stuck on the first gear rail. So Reverse locks up the tranny, won't let me go anywhere, and stalls the car. From there on out, neutral is first gear. The only way to fix the problem it seems is to pull out the transmission, and as soon as the mechanics get it on the bench and pull the tail housing off, the rails de-latch themselves. It has also happened before on the fourth gear rail. I've replaced all the parts in the tranny and gotten two seperate new(used) tranny's and it has happened to all of them within a few weeks. The car has been in and out of the shop for 8 months now because it keeps happening and it's absolutely baffled all the transmission guys i've taken it to.

Anyone heard of this problem or know how to fix it or anything? Any advice would be useful at this point.

P.S. Everything else on the car works great.

1980 Nissan\Datsun 280 ZX 5 Speed manual

[Nigel1943]

I'm just wondering if this is a gearstick problem. As youv'e used other trannys it's seems logical the problem is not the tranny itself but something external. This fault may explain why Nissan changed the stick on the later trannys with the introduction of a spring loaded connecting pin. I've wondered why they did this. If it's not releasing until the tailshaft is taken off then the tranny's not getting properly into gear in the first place. Have you always used the same stick on the different trannys?

Just thought about this a bit more. It makes sense that when the gearstick is going over centre, eg from 1st to reverse or 3rd to 4th, the ball end of the stick will exert more pressure on the selector rod as it passes through vertical. Maybe Nissan recognized this and that's why they modified the stick with the spring loading.