Hello all, hope you can help. I just bought this car, pretty good shape 257,000 miles and runs great. It will be my winter car. It shifts into all gears fine, but when I try to put it into 5th gear, the shifter goes there, but no gear. When it is just sitting idle and I try to put it in 5th gear and let out the clutch I hear grinding. I hope its something simple, like a linkage problem. If anyone ever had this problem and corrected it, please let me know. Thanks

Last thread about this kind of problem turned out not so pretty. I'm guessing your fate will be the same.

 

 

This is a thread about front seal replacement, but it has the general procedure for opening the case, which is what you'll need to do to find out what went wrong.

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=90182&highlight=input+seal

ouch, I will look into it.

I got some time yesterday to play around. I unbolted the shifter inside the car, moved the rod all the way to the right and pushed it in, and it went into 5th gear. Is there a way to adjust the rod so it will go into fifth with using the shifter?

Does your shifter have a lot of "slop?" It could be worn out bushings in the linkage--especially the boss joint where the linkage connects to the tranny stub-out.

 

Good luck.

Does your shifter have a lot of "slop?" It could be worn out bushings in the linkage--especially the boss joint where the linkage connects to the tranny stub-out.

 

Good luck.

 

 

Mine has that problem but I have a lot of slop and sometimes you have to be careful getting back into 3rd because it feels like it locked out so I have to back up and wiggle it around until it falls in.. does not happen all the time but I know it's the knuckle where the linkage connects.

That's good news.

Yeah you probably want to replace the bushings in the shift linkage.