Transmission just "free=wheels"

[rlpatte]

1997 Ford Ranger 3.0L 4X4 5 sp manual - Ok, spent the last week underneath the truck every night and replaced everything from master cylinder down to the slave cylinder, clutch, throw out bearing, disk, etc. Put it all back together, it ran for about a quater mile and then just "free wheeled". Noting, no gears at all. It made no noise, didn't jerk, just stopped pulling. This was the original symptom that lead us to pull the tranny and replace the clutch (which definitely needed it). My son, whose truck it is, swears that the gear shifter is way sloppier than it used to be and that he was not able to put it in gear without using the clutch before the problems started. You can put it in gear easily without the clutch but, again, when you let the cluth out nothing grabs, just sits there like it's in neutral. When we had the transmission out I checked to make sure when it was in gear that I couldn't spin the shaft by hand and I couldn't but it sure seems like there is nothing in the guts of the transmission now. Any ideas? ... Thanks ...

 

[pillen140]

Broken input shaft? Broken shift linkage? Is the shifter bolted down all the way?

 

[pillen140]

Also make sure the shifter is actually sitting in the transmission correctly, the little ball has to go directly into the socket inside the transmission