QuestionA guy just rebuilt my transmission and replaced the clutch for my 52 Chevy pickup....it sometimes jumps out of 3rd gear and more often than not, I cannot shift into 1st gear from a complete stop...sometimes it locks up...have to raise the hood and put it into neutral....kinda embarrassing at intersections....cannot remember how to adjust....put it into neutral and loosen the linkage and try for a happy medium??
AnswerYou don't say what size the truck is, or whether or not this truck has column shift, but since it is a 3 speed, I'm going to assume it is a 1/2 ton, and has column shift. If my guess is wrong, disregard my answer and let me know, because the situation is different for trucks with floor shift.
If this just happened for the first time after you had the trans and clutch worked on, take it back and complain - they didn't adjust the linkage correctly - either the shift linkage or the clutch linkage, or perhaps both.
If it had been acting up before the work was done, your shift linkage is out of adjustment or, more likely, worn out.
To answer your question, though, the way to adjust it is to put the transmission in neutral using the levers on the transmission, with the shift linkage disconnected from the transmission. Then, have someone hold the shift lever FIRMLY in the neutral position, and then adjust the rod lengths so that the rods fit into the steering column levers WITHOUT MOVING the transmission levers OR THE COLUMN LEVERS!. If there is slop in the linkage, it has to be taken out by tightening up the worn holes that the rods go through, or by putting bushings in the holes (sometimes a short length of tubing will fill up the empty space and tighten the linkage, if you can find the right size tubing, and have a tubing cutter) - whatever you can figure out to take the slop out of the linkage. That should help a lot, but if you can find new shift parts for the steering column, it will make the truck shift like new again.
Good luck with it;
Dick (who drove a 51 1/2 ton Chevy pickup up until 1994).
