Question about loosing 4th and not being able to move the shifter in 700r4 - Third Generation F-Body Message Boards

HCR13 · 04-11-2009, 03:00 PM

I tried doing a quick search with no much success. Here is the situation. Late last night, me and a couple of friends were a bit hungry, so we decided to go to IHOP. Everything is fine, we're crusing there in my car. No worries. Earlier it was raining hard, and I mean HARD, but this time no more rain. I was doing, maybe 45-50mph. RPMS at around 2k. I had the cruise control on, just to keep it at an even speed a bit earlier in the drive, but I press the brake and it disengaged.. We're cruising and all of a sudden I hear a loud pop and the rpms shoot up to 2k maybe a bit more, I looked down at the shifter and it put itself into 3rd, so I go to move it into 4th and its stuck. It would not move, not even into neutral. We were almost at IHOP, so I said f* it and just pull into IHOP. I park at a spot and go to put in park...and it wont. The shifter itself is stuck...or rather being held back by the cable. I am able to use some muscle and force the shifter into the Park location (but the tranny stayed where it was) because with the car on, and the shifter in the "P" location, the car lurches forward when off the brake. So I know the transmission itself did not respond to the shifter. So we went in, ate, and about an hour later we came back to the car. Knowing the sitation, I had "parked" in the middle of the lot so I wouldn't have to mess with reverse. "Parked" consisted of the tranny in drive, car off, with the parking brake on. We get in to drive home. I try manually shifting the car. 1st gear fine, 2nd gear fine, 3rd gear fine, I drive like that a bit and noticed I didn't try 4th. So I try 4th or D and it shifts into it fine....? So we get home, I try Neutrual and it goes into neutral. I try reverse and it goes into reverse. I try to park it and it wont park. It disengages from reverse but not into park. I think it was the shifter, or shift cable because I really had to "force it" into the park position, so I slam the shifter forward and the car stops lurching. I park it, put a brick in front of the tire for good measure. I check the tranny fluid and its all good. Not burnt, no smoking. Its typicall clear light red color. Nice and full...past the full line. So I came home, worried about it, went to sleep, worried some more and searched here and then made this post. My car has about 145xxx miles on it and as far as I know, its the original transmission. Any help would be appreciated guys. Thanks alot!

HCR13 · 04-11-2009, 10:30 PM

drove it around a bit today, seems like its driving a bit better, but it doesn't go into park easy. I have to slam the shifter forward for it to catch, is this something I can adjust? or is the tranny fubar?

89-bird · 04-12-2009, 12:27 PM

I would check my cable first something in the road may have cought it and done something to it .

HCR13 · 04-12-2009, 03:26 PM

thanks, I think I'll do that later because everything seems normal now, except I have a hard time getting it into park...

89-bird · 04-12-2009, 03:55 PM

Your welcome and good luck .