Protege won't go into first or second

My '92 Protege has decided it won't shift into first or second gear. (Before you tell me to look at clubprotege, I tried that and the search wasn't working.) The shifter will move most of the way to where it normally finds first or second, but the car will bog down when I let off the the clutch and the wheels won't turn. 3-5 and Reverse function normally.

My first (hopeful) thought was the shifter bushings. The car has 247k miles and the shifter is pretty sloppy, but the bushings are present and look like they've been replaced at some point relatively recently. Googling seems to indicated bent shift forks or broken synchros...any ideas?

it does not try to grind out of or into gear?

To tell you the truth, I had this happen like this once on a 1988 Hyundai Excel. It got stuck between two gears and only a high RPM clutch dump broke it loose (and probably caused the input shaft breakage 10,000 miles down the road)

This will sound weird but if you pull up on the shifter while trying to put it in gear does it help any?

Could it be the left/right cable snapped in the sheath or something else broke som other place that would be making it exclusively a push cable? So 1st and 2nd are really just 3rd and 4th repeats? Watch the linkage on the trans while a friend works the shifter.

Listen to mr. Swank up there. The shifter assembly comes apart over time. also, Could be bushings, motor mounts or the tranny on its way out. It's not uncommon for them to break.

Mad_Machine- It's not hung up in two gears, because I can drive it if I start out in third. (The problem there is that it's got 250k on the original clutch, and I don't see it lasting too much longer if I have to slip the hell out of it at every stoplight. If all else fails, I may try your "high-rpm clutch drop in 1st" idea and see what happens. I'm thinking it won't be pretty.

Swank- Doesn't seem to matter how I manhandle the shifter.

Iantboyd- bushings in the bottom of the shifter lever seem okay. I have them and I'll try replacing them and see what happens if I can't figure out what else might be wrong.

Kenny-Good guess, but it's a rod shifter. I have had the gf work the shifter while I stare at the linkage. It seems to be working like it should.

If it turns out to be internal to the trans, I'll just scrap the car. I gave $500 for it and beat it like a rented mule for six months; I don't think it owes me anything at this point and the rust is pretty terminal. I do like the little guy, though, and I kinda was hoping to get a few more months out of him.

When a similar thing happened to my Peugeot it turned out that one of the shift rods popped off. It was the one that stabilizes the assembly, not the one that actually connects to the trans.

Get under it and check your linkage. If it looks fine, remove the linkage from the trans, stick a screwdriver through the trans end, and see if you can get all the gears or not.

The reason why i asked about what happens when you pull up on the shifter is that these cars are notorious for a "dropped shifter." Once they "drop," the linkage can bind on the exhaust.

Just what I was going to suggest. Normal on Escorts too.

I hope that you can take care of it without too much trouble, but if you do decide to scrap it, be sure to post here first. There are a few BG owners here in GRMland.

Time for some bronze oil replacement shifter bushings

Apparently these had some nasty synchro issues, but I'm not tranny guy...

If you want an extra set of eyes on it, holler. I'm free tonight and tomorrow night.

Speaking of which, who is the preferred provider of the ol' Bronzoil bushings these days? Our '94 desperately needs some.

Powar wrote: Speaking of which, who is the preferred provider of the ol' Bronzoil bushings these days? Our '94 desperately needs some.

Corksport is the only place still available as far as i know. Though i think if you dig around on CP someone figured out what they were using. (They weren't/aren't making them in house.)

It's still got a ton of clearance between the shift lever end and the exhaust...like two or three inches. Don't think that's it. Shifter doesn't really come up when I pull up on it.

Not sure about the Protégé, but I had a Jetta that did that once. Turned out the trans mount had failed and it was binding the lever and not allowing it to shift into gear.