If you're familliar with my truck you may remember that I had a problem with my rear brakes where the PO completely gutted the left side.

Well, a problem developed with my Getrag 360 where the shifter would get between gears and it would be stuck in gear and couldn't be shifted.

I had read that the shifter could be removed from the tower by removing the snap ring and then it would pop up and out. Well mine didn't have a ring. I had asumed that it was a slightly different model of Getrag and that I would need to remove the whole top of the tranny to fix it. I had elected to cut the floorboard out rather than pulling the trans so a couple of days ago I decided to start in on it.

I took out the seat and the carpet and I started looking things over. I had a gasket so I laid it on the floorboard in about the right position and I was ready to mark out where I would need to cut.

I started looking at the shifter more closely and I discovered I could push it down into the trans about 1/4 inch. I looked even closer and I discovered that it was SUPPOSED to have a snap ring but it was missing. The PO, had apparently broke or lost the snap ring and instead of getting another one he just pushed the shifter back down and then beat the cover down to keep it from popping back out!

Well, it wasn't down far enough and it was slipping out of the shift forks which is what the problem was.

I took a Dremel tool and carefully ground out the bent parts of the tower so the shifter could come out and then I used a big screwdriver to align the forks in neutral. Then I cleaned out what remained of the groove for the snap ring and I got a new one (a 2" works fine) and re-assembled things.

Now the shifter works fine.

If I knew who the PO was it would be worth a trip down to Texas just to kick his edit!

Edwin

 

Doncha just love finding all the botched work that needs redone after buying a used vehicle from a bonehead PO?

 

I always expect to find a few things, especially those cause by neglect but this one takes the cake. The snap ring cost 85 cents!

Edwin

 

At least you didn't hack the floor before you found the problem.

Just left the snap ring out, huh? It's people like that who give morons a bad name.

 

I have just been informed of my use of bad language. I appologize to the list and it won't happen again.

Edwin

 

Your truck come from Rosenburg TX? When I bought my 2 grand pair, I found more and more stuff wrong that could have been fixed back to OEM with a little time and common sense. Drove me nuts, and I am STILL finding stuff wrong. Fortunately I only have one left. One went to Indiana last month.