Saginaw 4 speed connection

[Elitedragon27]

Can anyone post a pic of how the Saginaw 4 speed connections is supposed to look. I must have missed something and can not get mine to go into revers

[cjbiagi]

Not sure this is what you need but here's how the arms should look. It's important that the shifter (this is a Hurst Competition Plus) is adjusted correctly. With all the gears in neutral there should be a hole that you can slide a pin into that makes sure the shifter is in neutral, then you adjust the shift rods to the correct length. What did you do to the trans or shifter before having this problem?

[Elitedragon27]

I pulled the engine and trans as a unit from one car and put it into this one. Everything worked before. The pic looks to be how I have it set now. I am using the original shifter.

[73astregt]

you really want to make sure you get everything set up correctly with this trans and shifter combo, i had one in my 74 nova when i was 19 that if you didnt shift just right it would lock between two gears. when i was by myself when this happened i had to put my tool box in front of the driver seat, wedge the jack handle against it to depress the clutch and then reach under the car with a large screwdriver and realign the levers on the side of the trans to get it to unlock. pretty embarassing in the middle of the parking lot where everyone hung out with thier cars and i cant count the many times i burnt my wrist on the collector. ahhh to be young again lol!

[cjbiagi]

First thing you need to do is make sure the trans is in neutral, it doesn't look like it is from what I can tell. Most likely the shifter rods need to be adjusted. When you pull a shifter out from one car to another it's going to change the adjustments. This is because the shifter bolts to the car, not the trans so there can be some difference that occurs when you move things from one car to another. If the shifter had been bolted to the trans then you would have been ok. I think the gauge pin on a stock shifter fits into a little groove under the boot, not 100% sure on that thought as I don't have a stock shifter. Basically you want all the shift levers on the shifter in neutral, then with the trans levers in neutral the rods should be adjusted so that they easily slip right into the swivels. Here's the instructions from the GM service manual.

Here's the adjustment
1) Ignition off, raise vehicle on hoist
2) Loosen lock nuts on swivels on shift rods. Rods should pass freely through swivels.
3) Set transmission shift levers in neutral
4)Set shift control lever in neutral. Align control levers and install gauge pin into levers and bracket
5)Tighten 1st and 2nd shift rod nut against swivel
6)Tighten 3rd and 4th shift rod nut against swivel
7)Tighten reverse shift rod nut
Remove gauge pin from control lever and check operation

[robson]

Has anyone had to replace the input shaft on a 4speed Saginaw? The very front end of the input shaft that fits into the engine crank is rusted badley. I have a new input shaft coming from Driveline. Com. It looks like the input shaft comes out the front end of the tranny case and should not be too much trouble to replace. Let me know if you have done this replacement before, thanks, Charles.

[cjbiagi]

Here's a pretty good rebuild link, not exactly sure how the input shaft comes out but shouldn't be too bad.
http://www.circletrack.com/drivetrainte ... n_rebuild/

[crawfw]

Hey Clyde,
Thats the article where I saw leaving out the tailshaft gasket for closer tolerances to reduce chattering in the tranny. This was the second time of hearing about it so it must hold some water I guess. lol

[cjbiagi]

I don't know, those gaskets are very thin and I wonder what the thickness of the silicon ends up being? Either way I guess............