Reverse problem with 87 shelby charger

[Mysterio]

I just bought an 87 shelby charger...

The guy drove it to me from pittsburgh to cleveland ohio so I know it drives good. I didn't test drive it first because I had already done a non refundable down payment but he was very thorough on every little small problem on the car.

He left, I went and got insurance and went to drive it and for some reason I cannot get it into reverse.

I tried going through the gears then reverse, or from 1st to reverse and nothing. Even with the car off no reverse. Is there some sort of trick to it?

It feels like i'm hitting a dead end or like it's hitting between gears and not actually going over into reverse. I can't feel it even trying to drop in at all.

I'm waiting for him to get home so I can call him and see if he has a trick for it and forgot to tell me or what, he seemed like a really nice guy so I don't think he was tryhing to dick me over and not tell me. It doesn't feel like reverse is gone in the tranny cause its not even trying to go into it. Like I said, just kinda like its hitting a dead end.

So basically, is this comming? Are there any tricks for getting it into reverse that I don't know about? I also tried rolling the car backwards while pushing it into reverse but I dont want to break the linkage by pushing too hard.

[GLHS444]

If your car still has the original 525 trans in it, then the method to hit reverse is as follows:
Shift to neutral, push down on the stick, move stick to far left while still pushing down, then push the shifter forward as if you were trying to shift to first gear.
That should put you in reverse gear.

If the trans has been swapped for a different type (555, 520, 523, 568), then there maybe some changes to the shift pattern.

Good Luck

[Mysterio]

Yea thanks. I figured that out before I got back to checking here. I had no idea the car had a reverse 5 speed pattern to the tranny. I was confused.

[DeLa1Rob]

I once had problems getting my GLH-S into reverse. It turns out my wife had used the car but forgot to use the clutch. She was able to chip several teeth off the gear set. After getting the transaxle rebuilt (and taking away my wife's set of keys), I no longer had any shifting issues.

robin

[GLHS444]

Hey Robin,
it's funny how those GLHS cars don't seem to care for the spouse sometimes.


When my GLHS was new back in '87, it would strand my wife at work every so often when she drove it to work (it had daily driver duty then and I rode the bus into downtown Dallas). By the time I could get to where she and the car were, the issue seemed to have corrected itself and it would drive just fine when I was behind the wheel. This went on for awhile, so you can imagine how she STILL feels about the GLHS, and I think the S car feels the same about her. After that she swore the car was female and didn't like her and would never drive it again..

Later it was determined one of the orginal fuel pumps (was running the 2 stage pumps then), would fail and revive itself after sitting a bit.

Goodtimes.....