87 325is shifter

I had new bushings put in my E30 and it shifts really nicely. It's kind of hard to say without using your shifter though!

Did you replace part number 13 in the drawing:

Lemuel Johnson

The more that part wears, the less any side-to-side motion of the shift handle gets transferred to the transmission. If the handle exhibits considerable side-to-side free play when in gear you need a new shift rod joint. I hear it's possible to replace without dropping the driveshaft but I wouldn't want to try it unless I had the car on a lift.

Lem Johnson

From your description it seems to me that most of the input motion to the gearshift lever is not making it to the transmission. I have replaced the little trunnion fitting (part no 13 on the reference sketch) on the transmission shaft on my e30 and gotten a noticeable improvment in operation but it was no wheres near as sloppy as you describe before I replaced it. It seems that the only thing that would result in that much lost motion would be if the fixed member (part no 1) had become disconnected at the front end. It might be useful if you could have someone move the gearshift lever while you observe the resulting motion from under the car.

I'll be putting the car in the air this afternoon and checking this out. Still can't select reverse and 1st and 2nd seem to shift but there's nothing there. Hopefully it's just a linkage issue...

This little sucker is just flopping all over the place. The drawing shows a plastic washer (#19) inside the shift joint (#13). Any idea what that's all about? I'm assuming the one in this car is gone as it looks as though it would stiffen it up. Anyhow, I'll drop the driveshaft in the morning and pop that little bastard out of there. Since I already know that the entire piece comes as one unit, I'll be replacing it...

-snip

fix the one you have. that way you wont be buying what could be trouble.. these tansmissions are getting old now.

Alrighty then, getting ready to pop this sucker open. Anyone else had a Getrag 260 apart? Any suggestions as to a source of parts? Output shaft nut was a pain in the ass to get off, tomorrow I'll remove the rest of the bolts and peek inside...

I'm hoping to hear from any of you who've worked in these before...

Never did get it open. Got another tranny and put it in. Will put a little more effort into it now as I don't care how bad I screw the thing up. Ran into problems when that was done but I can now sum them up

CRANKSHAFT REFERENCE SENSOR...

This little bastard has caused me ALL k>>>