linkage adjustment

Vince, what ever has slipped needs to be found, otherwise all of your adjustments will be for nothing, when it slips again.

Start checking the linkage, looking for shiny metal, where it looks like something has slipped. 1,3 & 5 means the shift mechanism back at the tranny is not being pulled out far enough, the linkage needs to be shortened up.

Your friend on the DTBB

Thanks George.

Hi Vince,

Removing the little 'plunger' will not cause any problems. I would suspect that one of your three UJ's is not gripping it's splined shaft tight enough. I suggest you check all three. There are two bolts on each. These need to be very tight. The first one is under your centre console. You can just about access this though your ash tray hole. The other two are visible in the engine compartment. You will need a long 13mm spanner to get enough leverage to get them really tight. I had one on my car that kept slipping, no matter how tight I did up the bolt. In the end I got over this by putting molly grease on the bolt threads, this allowed the nut to go that much tighter. It never slipped again.

Once you have eliminated any slipping in the for and aft movement, you now have to check the adjuster turn buckle. If this is not tight, it will allow torsional slipping (left to right in the gate)

Now to make the final adjustment. Put the transaxle into neutral position and loosen the turn buckle. The nut with the notches cut out of the corners is a left hand thread. With the turn buckle loose, get a friend to hold the stick in centre of the gate, and tighten it off. Try the gears, there should be an even gap between the stick and the gate (for and aft) when in 2nd and 3rd. If not, loosen the turn buckle and wind the gear stick forward or back a little until you are happy with the for and aft movement. Now check to see if you can get reverse and 5th. If not, loosen the buckle again and move the stick a tiny bit t the left or right, and tighten it off. Keep doing this until it is right. I have only ever done this on my own, but I am sure it would be easier with help.

Don't forget to oil the UJ's and lubricate the shaft with anti seize grease where it passes through the trunnion bearing (under the left hand header).

Johnny

Thanks Johnny, I've given up for tonight. There doesn't seems to be any slippage that I could see but I gave it a casual look. It does seem though that the shaft that comes directly out of the box bolted to the ZF might be where the problem is. It seems a little loose. Is that just a splined shaft? I dread something going wrong with the ZF.

Dr, Mr. Korina. I spent four months last year trying to get my linkage set right. I am now the worlds leading authority on shifter linkage problems because I am such a numbnuts I went through everything dozens of timesto finally get it right.
The only way to tell for sure, if you are getting slippage is to get under the car and wathc the linkage as someone elses shifts through the gears for you. THe symptoms you described sound like one of the ujoints are slipping back and forth on the spline. In that case you just need to find which one and tighten the nut. There are three, One is under the console in the cock pit, the next is just before the trunion bearing and the last one is on the shaft coming out of the ZF. If all of these are clearly not slipping as the linkage is moved, you will have to adjust the shaft which goes into the shifter box. If it comes to that, I will step you through that also. Best thing to do with shifter linkage is to do the easiest things first.

Like DeTom, I had this very problem and also learnt a greta deal along the way to resolving it.

Mine was slipping on the U-joint that connects to the ZF shaft, (much like it sounds yours is). Due to the elongated bolt recess in the shaft the bolt would butt up at one end enough to change on one side of the gate, but slip on the splines the return side.

I had to remove the u-joint and clean out the inner clamp surfaces to give it that little bit more tightening ability. Then afterwards go through the Turnbuckle exercise Johnny describes to get it the gears all correct in the gate again.

Good luck
Julian

Thanks again guys. This board is one of the reasons Panteras are great.

There are also the allen set screw on the bottom side of the shifter housing on the tailshaft. You have to remove the rubber plugs to get to them.

Hey Vince:

I was having similar problems with mine. Thanks to fellow Jersey Panteras member Tony "Shift Doctor" Digiovanna, we found it to be a loose trunion joint. Check it out while someone else shifts.

Swen

Hello all,
I went out this Saturday morning and took a good look at my linkage. There doesn't appear to be any slippage at any of the clamps. I'm pretty sure none of them have moved. You can still see the factory black paint on the two rear ones and the one under the ash tray looks fine also. Here's a variable that I didn't mention before because I didn't think mattered. A few weeks ago I changed the back up switch that comes out of the side of the access door where the linkage hooks up to the ZF. I'm talking about the switch that goes into the side of it. I didn't do it but I had a friend with an easy out pull out the broken piece of the original one that had broken off into the that part of the trans. I'm guessing that the next thing to do would be to remove that side plate and see if something broke off of the old switch and is blocking the movement of the linkage. I assume that's it's no big deal to do and if all looks fine I can just buy some liquid gasket goop and bolts it back on. Once again, any recommendations guys? Thanks again.

Once again, have you checked the allen screws on that shifter linkage housing below the back up switch? If those screws loosen, linkage gets sloppy.

I'll go verify just to be sure. Thanks.

I did and here's the bad news. It seems to 2 on the bottom might be stripping. I'm not putting any more torque on them. They're holding and I think they're tight enough. There was much slack in them. It might be time for a heli coil

They are probably ok now, but if it had been them I would have thought you would have troble side to side not fron to back. I have heard that the reverse light switch can keep the tranny from actualy shifting into revers. I took mine out and covered the hole.
Did tightening the allan screws fix the problem???

Nope, and I'm reasonably sure it's in the box opn the side of the ZF that has the data plate on it. I'm also afraid that once I pull out the 4 bolts that hold it together, 2 won't be threading anymore. I'll wait until during the week when I can get to a friend who can heli coil the holes for me. No doubt it will be something obvious, it usually is. Thanks all any way.

Four bolts? It seems to me there are six holding the cover on. Anyway once you get the side cover off, you should be able to see everything better. All that is in there is a little greese and linkages.