Not able to shift manually into 1st gear on my 727

[harley7985]

Hi guys!

I have a -74 Charger with an original 360 engine and 727 TF automatic transmission. I bought the car one year ago and ever since I bought it I have not been able to manually put it into 1st gear. I have been thinking it was a case of adjusting the rods from the gear selector to the transmission case. Today I tried to adjust the rods but still it wont move into 1st gear. I tried to do it directly via the arm on the transmission case but no luck... Besides this problem the transmission works and shifts as it is supposed to... Any suggestions what may cause the problem??

Thanks
Harley7985

[tricky lugnuts]

With all the linkage rods disconnected, can you take the little lever on the transmission body and run it through all of the gears - Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive, Two, One?

Obviously you'll have to be under the car. Friendly advice: make sure you block the wheels good or do this on flat ground.

If the little lever on the trans won't go into drive one, but will go into all the other gears, it sounds like some internal issue and I don't know what that could be. Sorry! Hopefully others with more information can chime in. I'll take a look in my factory service manual to see if it has any advice. But hey, at least it's working in Drive!

[harley7985]

I am able to move the little lever on the transmission body and run it through all of the gears from Park to 2nd... then it stops...

[John_Kunkel]

Is there a bracket bolted to a couple of pan bolts that is stopping the lever. Some cop cars had such a device to prevent shifting to (1).

If there is nothing external blocking the lever you'll have to pull the pan for a look/see.

[harley7985]

No outside bracket blocking... Can some kind of wrong adjustment of band and clutches in the tranny cause this problem or is there something that has actually broken inside?

[John_Kunkel]

Band adjustments have nothing to do with the manual shift lever, like I said...at this point all you can do is pull the pan and have a look.

Since you don't know the history of the car it's possible that somebody did some incorrect parts swapping at the last transmission overhaul, for example, if somebody replaced the '74 internal shift lever (roostercomb) with a '69-'70 part it would block 1st gear.

[harley7985]

Thanks for your replies guys! John: If thats what has happened, is it any way to modify that internal shift lever to fix the problem or do I have to replace the internal lever? Can that be done by only removing the pan or do I have to remove the tranny from the car?

[John_Kunkel]

First thing to do is remove the pan, you can't see the roostercomb because it's on top of the valve body. With a flashlight and small inspection mirror look on top of the VB and run the shifter through each gear while observing the action of the roostercomb and the surrounding area, when you get to 1st look for any obstruction that stops the roosterecomb. If nothing is visible in the mirror you'll have to remove the VB for as closer inspection.

[John_Kunkel]

The '69-'70 roostercomb is on the left, (note the longer "ear" on the right side) the '71 and later is on the right. The orange highlighted area on the steel plates act as stops for the 1st gear position, if the earlier roosterbomb is used on the later VB the roostercomb can't go into 1st because the plate extends out further.