Only have fourth gear

[BigJohn]

In-law dropped off their truck and asked if I would replace the clutch. I can drive it around in fourth gear, so it seems like the clutch is fine, but none of the other gears work. The shifter seems to go into each of the other gears fine, but the truck won't move. A couple of them (2nd and reverse I think) make a little grinding noise when I release the clutch. Does anyone have any ideas why it could only have the one gear? I really can't get a good answer from them about the symptoms before it all went out. It is a 93 ranger, 2.3L

Thanks for any help,

John

 

[thegoat4]

Mass internal transmission damage is likely.

It sounds like the countershaft drive gear came loose or broke all of its teeth off. In fourth gear the output shaft is coupled directly to the input shaft and none of the gears are actually doing any work aside from sloshing oil around. In any other gear power first gets transferred to the countershaft by way of the input gear. Then from the countersaft back to the output shaft. When all gears except fourth fail, it's often because the transmission got low on oil and burned the teeth off the input gear.

First thing to do is pull the drain plug and look at what falls out. If it's only a teensy bit of oil, or if you see a bunch of metal shavings or even chunks of gear teeth in it, plan on replacing the transmission.

 

[BigJohn]

Thanks for the quick informative reply. I'll check it out tomorrow.

 

[MAKG]

I'd plan on replacing the transmission regardless of what's in the oil (though I'll bet a bunch of gear teeth are in there). If the 1:1 gear works and all the other's don't, there really has to be a BIG problem in there.

FYI, it's not at all unlikely that the gear teeth are all stripped off the input shaft, but it really doesn't matter.

If the stars align, it might be rebuildable, but I doubt it. Regardless, it will be an expensive rebuild.