manual transmission stuck in gear, please help diagnose

[moretsky99]

96 Ranger 2.3, 5 speed manual. Just put a clutch and pressure plate and bolted it back up.
Bled the fluid and seem to have clutch as I can push the clutch down and it's in neutral.
With clutch up I think it's in first. I cannot shift to any gear.
So, once again, I start the truck with the clutch pedal down and I'm in neutral. I let up the pedal and I'm in a forward gear.
Unable to shift to any other gear.

 

[SenorNoob]

Did you pull the shifter stub out of the transmission to remove it? If so it's possible to put it back incorrectly and cause this. To fix it, remove the stube and using a large screwdriver reset all of the gear sliders to neutral.

 

[Shran]

I would start by removing the shifter stub and looking down into the transmission. My guess is that one of the shift forks was moved and it's engaged in a gear, but the shifter stub is not inside of the slot for that gear. Use a screwdriver to pull it back into neutral, there are three shift forks and in neutral they all should be lined up side by side.

 

[moretsky99]

Your a genius!! If you were here you'd get a kiss from a grateful 76 year old horrible mechanic.
Now let me vent...
This was the job from Hell! Initial problem was a noise under the truck, misdiagnosed by 2 mechanics as a blocked catalytic converter (cost me $25 for the goop to put in my gas to clean it). Other mechanic was worse, said it was a valve rattling around in my piston cylinder. Then the diagnoses from friends who corroborated the mechanics. I seemed to notice difficult shifting and so realized it was in the clutch area. Turned out that when I replaced the flywheel along with all the clutch parts 8,000 miles ago, I didn't know enough to Locktite the flywheel bolts. They all back out. The flywheel was flopping around like a chicken without a head.

2 days to pull the bell housing; 2 days to extract the pilot bearing. 2 days to put the bell housing back on. That top bolt...
Then 2 days to connect the hydraulic hoses. Best I could figure was because I used the bolts to pull the bell housing to the engine I left no room to back off the pressure on the hoses... and that from lots of research on line. Finally opened the bleeder while connecting the hoses and it worked. First time the clip gave way so I had to file it square again and file down the male connecter so the ridge would catch the clip.

And then ... no gears. By the way, had no idea what I was doing when I put the screwdriver to the gears under the shift lever, but seemed to work. 5 minutes. Thanks so much.

An appreciative wannabe mechanic that's about to give up his mechanic's suit.

Allen

 

[Shran]

Glad you got it fixed.

Clutch jobs on these can be a pain. I did one on my old '96 (same truck as yours it appears) and it too took me days because I was doing it at night in my driveway... the only time when the manager of the place I was living at wouldn't come over and yell at me for doing vehicle repairs.