I have a few questions about the transmission in my 1980 245 DL...

To start off, I of course drive a stick. Anything else isn't driving (heh heh heh...) I've also added a Tach (although I don't think it works too well.)

Anyhow, when I go to put it in reverse, every once and a while I get a terrible grinding noise, and I can feel it through the shifter. I found that if (while holding the clutch in) I first put the car in 2nd, and then up into Reverse, this usually goes away. What causes this grinding?

I just recently replaced the entire shift rod. When I was putting it back together with the new rod in place, I came to the reverse lock-out metal piece. I just kind of eye-balled it into place, but after thinking about it, I'm sure I should have set it to something specific. Anyway to know where this thing goes exactly?

Also, not sure if this problem relates to the transmission or not, but it seems to... When I'm driving, a lot of times I get this kind of "choking" or "coughing" noise that sounds like it's coming from the bottom of the car, especially after I shift gears. It feels almost like I'm upshifting too soon, but this isn't the case. It gets worse when I go into higher elevations (but everything gets worse higher up it seems.) Any ideas?

When I need to come to a complete stop, (say, at a stop light), should just shift into neutral and stay off the clutch, or just hold the clutch in and keep it in first? I've been doing the latter for many years, but recently, every once and a while, I get a very loud and violent grinding noise when I do this (similar to the reverse grind, but much worse). It only seems to happen when I put it into first (with the clutch depressed). Could the clutch be mis-adjusted? This didn't seem to happen very often until the next incident occurred...

A while back, I was coming up a VERY VERY VERY steep hill, and for whatever (foolish!) reason, there was a stop sign at the top of the hill. I had the car loaded pretty heavy, and the rollback was quite severe... so severe in fact I stalled the car (not something I often do.) Using the parking brake to keep from rolling down the hill, I started the car, released the parking brake, and tried again. Stalled again. 3rd time, I gave the car a LOT of gas, and let the clutch out very quickly. I sure got over the top of that hill, but I smelled the clutch burning, really bad. I've since avoided this crazy hill, but should I be worried about the clutch being burned like that?

One last thing: Any ideas where I should look to replace that little plastic piece that snaps on the top of the gear knob? I have the type with the OD switch (not button), and I've cracked one yet again. IPD doesn't have the kind of top I need, since my car is an '80, its all post '81 stuff.

Thanks for dealing with the long post, as always, the help is great!