wheres neutral

[ryansmachone]

So after I spent a few weeks monkeying a round with my carburetor thinking it was the reason to why my car wont start to find out all I needed to do was adjust the point under the distributor so it would fire so now it officially runs. But now I cant get my car to go into neutral and don’t know if all the gears are working properly because I havnt been able to drive it due to needing to replace my cracked out brake lines. So I guess my question is being this car has sat for 26 years what should I do to the transmission. And why cant I find neutral

[Steven Harris]

I looked back at your old post to see if you mentioned it but if so I missed it.

What type of transmission do you have? Manual or automatic.

I am going to assume automatic. Therefore your shift lever should have a P (park) detent, R (reverse), N (neutral), 3, 2, 1

If it doesn't seem to go in neutral then I imagine that the adjustment rod is needing adjustment.

As far as what to do: I would recommend dropping the pan, taking a look at the evidence (or lack of it), and changing the filter and fluid. You should be good to go!

[ryansmachone]

It is a 4 speed manual with a hurst shifter. assuming this is the shift pattern. but I cant find neutral in any position

R.....1.....3
..........n....
.......2.....4

[Mustangmike]

Neutral is located right there in the center right where you have it in your drawing.

It is right between 1st and 2nd gear. When you are in neutral your shifter will have horizontal (left to right) movement in it. You will know because if you hold it to the left and let go it will spring back to the center. If you are unable to get it into neutral when the car is not running then you have another issue, most likely a linkage problem.

[Steven Harris]

It may just be that your whole mechanism is rusty or grease caked to the point it is not moving freely. Spray it liberally with some type of lubrication spray and see if that helps.

As to what to do once the shift lever is moving freely again. I would recommend that you drain the old oil and replace it with new. Hopefully it will just look like some dark black goop, if it has a brownish color to it (water) then more in-depth work might be needed.