I Found 4th and 5th, It's ALIVE - Thanks THOMAS & Dr. Evil! Options

[ericread]

I finished rebuilding my transmission at the SoCal Dr. Evil workshop last Saturday (9/19/09). Everything is ready to go, but I can't find 4th or 5th - it feels like it neutral where 4th and 5th should be.

I've read dozens of threads regarding adjusting the shift bar, but I'm still not smart enough to figure it out.

I am assuming I need to turn the shift bar a few splines either clockwise or counter-clockwise? Am I on the right track? How do I do that???

Reverse and 1st through 3rd work great.

Eric

[ericread]

OK - Here's the update.

After trying to get 4th and 5th for about a day and a half, I took my car over to a fellow teener, Thomas over at EDM in Santa Ana. He is a master machinist and has several 914 projects. After dinking with my shift adjustment for about an hour, he agreed that I do not have the ability to select 4th or 5th gears.

How could this be, you ask??? Well, let me tell you. When he was manually setting the transmission into 2nd gear, he noticed that the ball pin (the part that attaches to the shift fingers on the bearing bracket assembly) was loose. Very loose. Even with the roll pin properly set, it was very loose.

Now I remember late Saturday evening when Dr. Evil took a look at that very assembly, he had a somewhat disapproving look. I asked him if that was bad, and the Dr. replied "It's not good, but it yours".

Thomas thought that although R and 1 through 4 shifted very well, the tolerance was so loose on that ball that I was unable to select 4th and 5th. The good news is that after taking various parts from his bins, he was able to build an assembly with zero play. (Although the first complete unit looked great compared to mine, he wouldn't let me leave until he had re-assembled a perfect one - TOO COOL!)

Anyway, I will drain the tranny oil tomorrow, remove the linkage and replace the shift fork assembly. I will report back here my success, or not success...

That's it for now.

Eric