The car is a 1982 DL, B-21A with M-46 and has 305k km. I looked in the archives but could not spot something that is similar to what is happening with the hard shifting on my car.

Everything is original as far as mechanic is concerned. Maintenance has been good to very good. The transmission by now has had 3 fluid replacements with type F automatic transmission fluid. Last one is 10k km ago about. A rear oil seal had to be replaced at the same time. The transmission is silent and never needed to add fluid between changes.

The clutch works good(new disk and pressure plate, bearings 50k km ago), adjustment is OK(no grinding when getting into reverse), all syncros work well and there is no gear noise when shifting any gear. In first gear, I can feel the shifter moving a little(toward front and rear) on acceleration followed with deceleration. This might be normal.


PROBLEM: Once in a while when stopped at a street corner and the light turns green, I depress cluthch pedal and the shifter just wont get into any gear, not even reverse. So the reverse gate adjustment is not involved here.

The shifter is like jammed in neutral. I know that when I want to stop and I brake hard staying in 4th gear it is going to jam, even hard to pull out of 4th gear when the car is stopped. The only way I can get out of this mess is forcing it repeatedly in 3rd and 4th gear, 1st and second gear never worked yet. With a couple of physical try it usually get stiffly engaged in 4th gear, then I can engage 1st gear and go. It then might be OK for the next 10 corner stops before it jams again. The problem seems to become more frequent now. It started last summer. I am afraid I might eventualy break something because you know, when the light turns green the car has to move.

A new technique I use is shifting in 1st gear before the car is stopped.

My wife is having a hard time with this problem and she wants to quarantine the car until this is repaired.

I just can't figure out what is going on inside to cause this problem.

Sorry for the long post. I tried to describe with accuracy what is happening.

Thanks for your replies and references in archives that you think might apply.