So I saw a 1988 mighty max for sale on market place. The truck has 160xxx miles is a 5 speed manual 4x4 and overall looks to be in pretty good shape for it’s age. The only trouble is the owner says that the truck is stuck in second gear. He says it will drive in second. I asked him how it happened and he just said from regular driving it just got stuck in gear and he wasn’t able to take it out of it. So my question is what are some possible rough diagnostics from you handy guys out there? The price seems right for the condition and me my self only know how to do very basic work on trucks. For how much do you guys estimate I han got it fixed? Thank you very much!
Hi and welcome to mightyram. Could be something as simple as a bad shift lever assembly. The nylon cup and pivot ball in them wear out and it'll act glitchy when it fails, or the bolts holding it down have wound out or have stripped. Next thing is might have had the lever pull out and the PO failed to get the selector fork back into the right place, subsequently locking the transmission out. This is an easy fix but requires taking the shift lever out and feeling your way through the selector fork until it wants to engage on a gear cluster. Last, but not to be dismissed, is a bent selector fork. This is a gearbox out job and requires the transmission to be disassembled.
Alright thank you very much for the helpful info! You just convinced me to land this truck and get to work on it! Hopefully it is one of the first 2 problems you mentioned because I really have never worked on transmissions.
It is missing the little nylon cup that goes on the end of it. Other than that it looks to be fine. I feel like someone on here found a source for replacement cups at some point in time, but I don't remember for sure.
Online cheap - they were also used in Hyundais as well so there are a couple of avenues to track them down. What condish is the central pivot ball like - not cracked or worn down etc?
The pivotal ball actually looks like it is in decent shape! Man I really hope this is why my transmission doesn’t want to come out of second. It feels like it is in neutral because the shifter is all loose.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks