Stuck in reverse

[HKSZ]

Here's a good one, I jumped into my 4x4 that has the same 5sp as our zeds. Put it into reverse, backed out shifted to neutral but the car is still in reverse :tapemouth . The gear lever is in the center posistion and won't shift in any direction, clutch still works and the lever isn't broken.

Any suggestions this side of taking a hammer to it.

[jmortensen]

This has happened to my car at the race track and a friend's Z right in front of my house, then again about a week later the same thing happened to her. What happened in our case was pretty weird, and I can only really guess at the cause. I think the shift rails hit some perfect amount of vibration that allowed the 5th/rev rail to move on it's own right past the detent balls.

On the race track I had a friend driving and he went to downshift into 2nd and the rear wheels just locked. He slid past a brick cornerworker's stand at speed, missed it by ~3 feet. During the slide the stick was in 2nd, but then after he stopped he was able to put it in neutral and when he did the car was in reverse. We believe the car spun because the transmission hit reverse and neutral at the same time, locking the rear solid. He then moved the stick around trying to put it into every gear and suddenly it freed itself, we kept driving it for the rest of the day and never had any problems.

On my friend's Z she came to my house, pulled off in the dirt on the side of the road, and did a U-turn to park directly in front. She peeled out a little bit when she was in the dirt, then hit the asphalt, and this jolt apparently was what did it. She stopped, got out, and we hung out until about 12AM, then when she went to leave she couldn't move the car. It was the same basic story the second time it happened to her. Car went just fine, she parked and when she went to leave it was stuck in reverse.

On hers we couldn't just play with the stick and get it to release. We had to drop the transmission right where it was, pull out the detent balls from the side of the case, and manually move the shifter rails back into the neutral position. Once that was done it worked fine, both times.

[HKSZ]

Thanks for your reply Jon and you've given me something else to think about the next time I'm out on the track! I did crack open the two detent bolts in the sandwich plate but nothing fell out, nothing happened, should I be expecting there to be a spring and ball bearing?

steve

[jmortensen]

Yep. Balls with springs on top. What I failed to mention is that on mine after that happened I pulled the trans and put a couple washers on top of the spring, basically to shim up the spring pressure on the detent ball. Made a noticeable difference in the shifter, and never had that problem again, although the problem is so rare I don't know that the shims really are helping.

Do you have the 280Z or 280ZX manual? Someone posted a link to www.carfiche.com where you can download them. They're something like 70 megs each, but convenient to have when you start messing around with this stuff.