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Engine/Transmission (1994 - 1998) Stuck in 5th........

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Had to pick up another fellow Hot Shots load the other day. He has a 96' CTD and he was stuck in 5th gear. Talked to him today and said he hasn't got it fixed yet. How many of you guys have had this happen or may know what the problem is?



Jason
 
my truck has done that a couple of times now when it happens with engine running let clutch out just a bit and it will come out of gear. the first time it stuck I was in back seat kicking shifter as hard as I could to get out of gear now that I know the clutch trick not a big deal
 
Been there, done that.

Good news is that as long as the gear stick is stuck in the 5th gear position, the transmission can stay in the truck. Only the tail section has to come off. The arrows in the picture below show 3 spring loaded tabs. One of those tabs was preventing the 5th gear assembly from going back into it's normal position. There are two roll pins that hold the 5th gear fork in position, they have to be tapped out from the bottom.

I just took everything apart, cleaned it real good and put it back together, not exactly sure what caused to tab to hang up, but it's been fine since. A month before I had to replace a gear in the 5th gear assembly and may have not put it together just right.



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I forgot to mention I think he said that he can take and move the shifter around I believe but the truck is still in fifth... ... ... ...



Jason
 
I've seen this a few times and it was a slightly bent shift fork.



On one truck, the guy tried to limp it for a long time without fixing it. It would stick in 5th if you got slower than 30 mph without downshifting. It progressively got worse and worse until double clutching and rocking the truck wouldn't allow the gear to come out.



Many times the shifter was pulled so hard that it actually popped out of the shifting slides (gates). You have to remove the gear shifter and use a prybar to get the transmission back in neutral. Then you can reinstall the gear shifter and get home.



Maybe that will help a little. Out of curiosity, what kind of oil is he running in the transmission.



-Chris
 
I am not sure Chris... ... . I only talked to the guy for a few minutes on the side of the road while I was hooking up to his trailer... ... .



Jason
 
Sticking in 5th gear

There is another reason that the trans will stick, and it is not good. I had one fail because I lost teeth from fifth gear and the counter gear which got stuck in such a way you could not shift out of fifth, or maybe the broken teeth bound up, not sure on the order. Will make a really bad clicking noise in all gears if this happens.



This happened on a Standard Trans full spline rebuild at 13K miles with a total towing distance of 300 miles (5K under GCVW). They wouldn't work with me at all, even though I only had the trans in the truck for 10 months. Used the spec Castrol oil too!



I am really thinking about other transmission options.
 
I'm glad I'm not the only one that has had that happen. It would only get stuck in 5th after climbing a good hill etc. with a big load. It wouldn't matter if my rpms were just right or the clutch was in, it would have to be beaten on to get it out of 5th. My transmission just grenaded while on holiday. I lost all my gears except for 4th. I limped it for 1000 miles with only 4th gear low and high range.

I just installed a new 6spd in this weekend. Works great!

I hope this cures all my transmission problems. By the way I noticed I had no more pilot bearing when I took out the trans. This was probably part of the problem.

Garry
 
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