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It only happens after cruising for a while on the freeway without changing gears. When car cold downs the lever returns to the center position by itself as it is supposed to do.
If I guide it, shifting is not a problem.
Revised the linkage and did not see anything wrong.
Any ideas?
Thanks!!!
Curious myself because I have a similar issue and just like you, it seems only to be when the car is warmed up. It kind of feels "notchy" and just not smooth correct? Have you changed the fluid lately? That's kinda what I'm thinking for mine. At first I thought mounts also, but I don't see why temp would affect the mounts.
I had this problem. I found worn bushings in the shift linkage and changing the fluid which both helped. After eliminating everything external to the tranny, I took it to a trusted 911 mechanic. He felt the notchiness and then put it up on the lift and disconnected the shift linkage and shifted it manually via the input linkage. The notchiness was inside. Ultimately, I ended up rebuilding the tranny.
Thanks all of you for your kind help.
Motor mount are all most new, so that should not be the problem. Excuse my ignorance: what does have motor mounts to do with the gear change? I imagine that if the mounts are very bat the engine can by unstable and affect the gear change, but they have to be very bad, right?
The feeling is as described by dsan: if you help the lever goes to the center, but it does not do it by it selve.
Fluid was changed a while ago, maybe 4-5 years; I don’t have the records with me. I’ll have to try it to see if there is any change.
Rocket Rob: when you rebuild the tranny, where there anything wrong that affected the notchiness?
Sounds like the fluid you're running is breaking down too quickly under heat. Might be a good idea to service the transmission fluid. I had a similar experience with this as it was causing grinding in some gears. Once the fluid was changed, issue was resolved. 4-5 years since the fluid was serviced is a long time. I'd highly recommend Swepco 201 fluid, which can be found here. Start with the easiest routes first.
Just an update on this old thread, since I still have the problem.
One thing that I noticed is that the lever does not behave the same on both directions: if I pull it to the right (closer to me), it does not return by itself; if I pull it to the left, it does return by itself.
Yes. It did for my car. I replaced the plastic bushing under the shifter and also the one at the front. Both were in poor condition. The shifter feel returned to normal once it had the new parts and fresh grease.
Had a similar problem with my 1991 C2 and replaced / refurbished all bushings for the shifter, but the problem was not resolved. In my case everything worked perfect while the car was cold and once you were driving for +30 min a "sticky shifter" syndrome was kicking in. Basically the shifter left/right side movement would stick in the 1st/2nd gear area position and was difficult to move towards third gear. Suprisingly 3rd, 4th and 5th shifting was flawless. Also shifting down from third to second worked reasonably. In the end we diagnosed the issue to be in the gearbox by disconnecting the shift linkage at the gearbox side and using a large M8 screw directly attached to the shift linkage in the gearbox.
Due to the sad news the gearbox had to be opened and the specialist diagnosed the issue as a kind of oil potential additive that had accumulated in the gearbox (see below). Part #2 was sticking on axle #4 once the gearbox did get warm. Once the parts had been cleaned from the residue the operation was flawless even when warm binding between both parts due to sticky residue when gearbox warm - no issue on cold
I am still glad he took his time taking the gearbox apart and warming up the parts so we could find and resolve the issue.
We have no idea what caused the sticky residue - the oil that came out of the gearbox when I bought the car (about 80k miles) seemed to be very old, so I do not think the gearbox had seen oil changes. Perhaps someone had the brilliant idea to add anykind of "magic transmission fluid" to overcome the normal G50 gearbox noise.
Every other part of the gearbox was in top condition.
Had a similar problem with my 1991 C2 and replaced / refurbished all bushings for the shifter, but the problem was not resolved. In my case everything worked perfect while the car was cold and once you were driving for +30 min a "sticky shifter" syndrome was kicking in. Basically the shifter left/right side movement would stick in the 1st/2nd gear area position and was difficult to move towards third gear. Suprisingly 3rd, 4th and 5th shifting was flawless. Also shifting down from third to second worked reasonably. In the end we diagnosed the issue to be in the gearbox by disconnecting the shift linkage at the gearbox side and using a large M8 screw directly attached to the shift linkage in the gearbox.
Due to the sad news the gearbox had to be opened and the specialist diagnosed the issue as a kind of oil potential additive that had accumulated in the gearbox (see below). Part #2 was sticking on axle #4 once the gearbox did get warm. Once the parts had been cleaned from the residue the operation was flawless even when warm binding between both parts due to sticky residue when gearbox warm - no issue on cold
I am still glad he took his time taking the gearbox apart and warming up the parts so we could find and resolve the issue.
We have no idea what caused the sticky residue - the oil that came out of the gearbox when I bought the car (about 80k miles) seemed to be very old, so I do not think the gearbox had seen oil changes. Perhaps someone had the brilliant idea to add anykind of "magic transmission fluid" to overcome the normal G50 gearbox noise.
Every other part of the gearbox was in top condition.
Now that’s an exact description of what is happening to me.
The only thing is that the issue is not that important to me as to open the gear box just to solve it, I can live with it.
Next time I lower the engine I will try to clean the interior of the gear box with diesel and see if it makes any differences.
04-14-2015, 03:05 PM
Gear lever does not return to center position
Ultimately, I ended up rebuilding the tranny. 
