went to take my ute (ca18det ) for a drive today and it would only go into reverse and neutral??????? i drove it yesterday and it drove fine, didn't rev it over 4-5000 rpm and NO burnouts. parked it in my garage til today and now i have this issue... in reverse it has bite there and reverses fine and plenty of pressure on the pedal. i checked the clutch fluid and seems ok. any ideas what could be wrong........ the other problem i have is that my ute only has a massaged tunnel and a ca18det gearbox so removing the gearbox will be an issue. any one know anybody in brisbane to do tunnel mods?????

BUMP

I wonder if revhead could give you any pointers?

So your clutch works fine?

When you try and put it into forward gear does the gearstick actually pop into gear, or is it impossible for the gearstick to clunk into gear?

Anything else you can tell us?

Could be a broken shifter bit inside the case. How about if the engine is OFF -- can you then move the shifter into the other gears?

doesn't matter if the car is running or not. it is the same. and it is impossible to crunch it into gear. when u push the lever up out of reverse it doesn't pop over to centre or anything...i was thinking a shifter problem or a linkage or something as it was fine the whole way home from the initial drive................. thanks for the input so far. this car is doing my head in. nothing is ever sdtraight forward.. :(

I have no personal experience with CA transmissions (71-series?). But with the A-series transmissions, it is not uncommon for the internal shift linkage to bend and it won't go into some gears -- usually reverse.

For a sanity check, see how much play there is at the clutch pedal. You should be able to move it about 2cm with your pinky before there is any resistance. If it is very loose, like 5-10 cm, the clutch won't engage enough to shift gears. Of course it shouldn't go into reverse either so that's probably not it. Worth checking though since it doesn't cost anything.

sheared roll pin in shift fork?