Can't Get Car in Neutral to Start Up

[Bingster]

I am ready to attempt to start up my '47 DeSoto after waiting a long time to get everything hopefully together, but it seems to me that the car isn't in neutral and I had already dismantled the clutch. If the engine fires will the car drive out of the garage? I do have fluid drive.

[joecoozie]

Get under the car, or if the floor is out go from the top, and "manually" shift the car into neutral by moving the levers on the transmission by hand

Or, if you don't want to do that just jack up the rear so the tires are off the ground

[Bingster]

I put the shift lever back on the column and am able to shift through the gears, but there are no "stops" at each gear like high, etc. I can slide through the range but it's like moving through one big gear.  I don't know if I am actually in neutral when the shift lever is in the neutral position.

[Los_Control]

I was fooling around with my shift lever before .... removed it from the column to pull the steering wheel off.

 

I changed my mind and decided to wait til a better time to pull the wheel and put the shift lever back on the column.

Now I could not get it into neutral and could only go forward or reverse ... no neutral.

 

While fussing with the shift lever I had knocked the shift linkage on the transmission out of sync.

I had to move both the arms on the transmission back to neutral and then the shift lever now worked properly and all gears worked again.

 

It was easy for me since I had the old floor cut out and could just reach down and fix it ..... took a few minute to figure out what was wrong though.

It sounds weird but makes sense, 2 shift arms one moves back and forth to reverse/1rst .... then in neutral the 2nd arm you push down to change rails .... now the 1rst arm is switching between 2nd/3rd ...... neutral is 1/2 way between rails.

 

So if the arms are not in sync, you will either get reverse/1rst or 2nd/3rd ... depending what rail you are stuck on ..... no neutral.

 

Just put the shift lever in the neutral position,then get under the car and line the arms up into the middle position ..... chances are it is as simple as that.

[Bingster]

I dug a pit under the car and so can get to it. It will take me awhile to figure out what you said. This is a new part of the car I am finding out about.  There have been so many just to get the car started. And it still won't even turn over. Just had the starter rebuilt and maybe I have a wiring problem, but it only sparks when I screwdriver the terminals. Maybe I am hitting the wrong terminals. I have gone through numerable You Tube videos and am still troubleshooting. But I thought that in any event I should have the car in neutral when it fires up.

[Los_Control]

When you look at an H    it is the shift pattern for your car, the 2 vertical lines represents the shift rails and the horizontal line is what the gearshift lever uses for a pathway between the rails.

 

You have one gearshift selector in the car, 2 shift linkages connecting it to the transmission.

One linkage selects the gears by moving the gearshift lever forward or backwards.

The other linkage simply selects what shift rail you are on.

 

Working normally, when in neutral you lift up on the gearshift to get to the reverse/1rst shift rail.

Pulling it back into neutral, there is a internal spring inside the transmission that pulls it back to the other shift rail.

This is all one linkage does, when you lift up on the gearshift & let it go back with the spring ... that is the full function of that linkage. Moves from one rail to the other.

 

the 2nd linkage simply goes forwards & backwards selecting the gears depending what rail you are on.

 

The tricky part is, Both the arms on the transmission have 3 positions. forward, middle, back. They both move together.

If one arm gets moved out of sync with the other .... you need to manually put them back into sync. Or it will not work.

 

IIRC, you should be able to correct this from under the hood, just by looking at your shift linkage and aligning them.

Take one shift linkage and push it all the way down, then move it up one click. to the middle position.

Then do the same thing with the other linkage ..... you should now be in sync and working again. ...... Might be easier to crawl under it and do it from there. I dunno.

 

 

This only happens when you mess with the linkage, or if you have worn out improperly adjusted linkage .... it is a common thing though.

Riding with a buddy years ago in his 68 camaro 4spd we got ran off the road and bottomed out in a ditch .... moved his linkage out of sync, had to crawl under it and fix it.

Nothing unusual to see here and a simple fix.

 

 

 

 

[Bingster]

I'll check it out. It's good for me to learn about another aspect of the car.