Just finished my fifth installation of my transmission in the past 2 weeks. I doing this alone so hope to heck I have the clutch throw accurate this time. Needless to say I have got the in and out pretty well down. But, the final step (for me) of connecting the shift rod at the firewall is a bi#ch. I have tried bracing the shift lever in the cockpit to hold in place. No good. I have held the rod with vicegrips at the firewall. Not much better. Any ideas? All of this is at jack stand level. I don't have a lift.

Get someone to hold the shifter....that way it can be turned to get the screw lined up...and pushed to insert the ujoint..

Rich

I use some needle nose vice grips. The thin jaws give you room enough to work.

is this a tail shift thing? i hooked mine up (side shifter) without a hitch. i did have my shifter removed, so i could pull the bar out quite a bit, bing bang boom, done. definetly scribe or mark the bar and the shift connector both horizontally and vertically before removing though, im still fine tuning mine after i newb'd it and just yanked it out. good luck Dave

Some are a bitch to get. I just do gymnastics and push here, pull there, foot here, elbow there, until the angles line up. Then, I get a friend and it takes a minute. If you didnt already put oil in it, you can pull the shift console housing on the tranny and then reinstall the whole thing once the rod is hooked up.