<VV> Help! I cant stop going backwards! (EM 4-speed)

kevin nash wrokit at hotmail.com
Sun Sep 16 23:51:17 EDT 2012



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> Message: 7
> Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2012 16:58:26 -0400 (EDT)
> From: wrsssatty at aol.com
> Subject: <VV> Help!  I can't stop going backwards! (EM 4-speed)
> To: virtualvairs at corvair.org
> Message-ID: <8CF62652690C8E3-1E78-6B45F at webmail-d049.sysops.aol.com>
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> The 4-speed on my '63 Monza will only go into reverse, not any of the forward gears.  I can get it out of reverse into neutral but neutral does not feel as left/right sloppy as usual.  Sometimes now I can't even get the left/right slop of neutral (although it is out of reverse and in neutral because I can take my foot off the clutch and not stall) and other times something seems to snap pushing the lever rightward and there's more left/right play.  This happened once before several years (but not that many miles) ago.  I was out for a Sunday drive at the time and decided I had gone far enough so I backed into someone's driveway to turn around and head home and after I backed into the stranger's driveway the car did not want to go into any forward gear.  I kept trying and trying and praying and praying and just as I was about to call AAA (and, no doubt, just as the homeowner was about to call 911) lo and behold the car went into 1st and the problem didn't reappear until now.  
>  Discussing the problem at the time I was advised to replace the shift rod coupler/fork thing (I think that's part number C131R in Clark's catalog) and I did so that's not the problem.  We jacked the car up and with one of us moving the shifter and the other looking underneath, nothing looks out of the ordinary.  Is there anything else that can be checked or adjusted without pulling the transmission?  What could it be? BTW, although my car is a '63, when I acquired it the previous owner had installed a '64 4-speed.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> ~Bill Stanley
>  
Bill- Check the bushing at the other end of the shift rod- to check it, remove the tunnel pan underneath the car. The bushing you are looking for is directly ahead of the shifter housing,and holds the front end of the shift rod. To check the bushing, try to wiggle the shift rod side to side- if the mount or the bushing has any noticeable amount of slop, this may be part ofthe problem. When there is excessive slack in the em shift linkage, the first thing to go wrong is that it is virtually impossible to put it into reverse, unless the shift coupler is clockedto favor throw to reverse- then the next thing that happens is that it becomes extremely difficult to put it back into the forward gears, as the coupler wont rotate far enough the otherway, because of all the slack in the system.I believe that the problem that you have is in the transmission itself, but it does not hurt to check for a simple possibility.Kevin Nash63 Spyder, 6000 miles per year daily driver  		 	   		  


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