Fifth gear went out on my 94, four-cyl. wrangler (I think it's an AX-5 transmission). I took the tranny down and removed the rear half of the housing, and sure enough the fifth gear and the fifth counter- gear and the counter-gear needle bearing were all chewed up. So, I replaced all that stuff and everything else seemed to be working perfectly.
But just as I was getting ready to re-mount it on the Jeep, I discovered another possible problem: Under some conditions, the reverse counter-gear can slide on its shaft toward the front end of the transmission EVEN THOUGH ALL THREE SHIFTER FORKS ARE STILL IN THE NEUTRAL POSITION! And once this happens, the transmission thinks it's in reverse, and there's no way to get it disengaged by moving the shifter forks -- in fact the shifter forks are all 'locked' in the neutral position at that point. The only way I get get it out of reverse again is to reach in through one of the oil-holes with a hooked tool and pull the gear back.
The only reason I happened to discover this was that I had propped the transmission up in a vertical position (with the input shaft downward) when I was putting the silicone rubber on the flanges to bolt the two halves of the case back together. And apparently, the reverse counter- gear just slipped back on its shaft under its own weight.
My question is: Is this normal behaviour, or is something loose / broken up in the front half of the tranny case??? Obviously, in normal operation, once the tranny is mounted on the vehicle, it's never going to be in a situation where the input shaft is pointing straight down -- or at least I sure hope I'm never in that situation [grin]! As long as the tranny is sitting horizontally on my workbench, I can move all three shifter forks in & out of all their correct positions and everything moves smoothly, unless I deliberately reach in with a long screwdriver and push (fairly hard) on the reverse counter-gear.
Thanx in Advance.