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The idlers and rods are not going together very well and I think I have discovered the problem. I'm wondering if my mechanic friend installed the front (2-3) transmission arm incorrectly on its shaft. Does this picture look like the front arm is in the neutral position? It is a shot of the arms when the old transmission came out and I assume it was in neutral.
Right now when the trans is in neutral the arm is one position forward from the picture.
I know the arms and shafts are splined and have 4 index marks and I'm thinking the front arm is off by one index thereby messing up everything forward of it.
Thanks.

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I think your trans was photographed in neutral. Can't get a straight on side shot of mine but in neutral the front arm appears to be in the same spot as yours -- just barely over the edge of mount.

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It looks like my 2-3 rods and arms are OK. It will shift into 2-3, but not into 1st, so my focus has turned to the 1-R circuit, for which I could start monkeying with the transmission arm but am hesitant to do so.

Right now, the 1-R trans arm is vertical when in neutral as I think it should be. In pic 1, note that the 1-R idler rod is very near full extension, while the 2-3 rod is as short as it can get. The levers are aligned/pinned (photo 2). Seems to me that the bottom arm of the 1-R idler needs to move towards the rear, so that the idler rod will shorten and the lever will have room to rotate. That means the transmission rod has to move and consequently the trans arm needs to be rotated. So, what am I missing? Everything else appears to be assembled correctly. Sorry to burn out this thread, but I am in gila monster mode.
Thanks

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This is what mine looks like in neutral. View is straight down from under air cleaner. Levers on shift tube are almost straight down -- just slightly off vertical and turnbuckles adjusted accordingly. If you can't get this then I think the trans levers must be off.

There is not much to reference to on the rear lever in neutral photo but maybe you can correlate to the protruding sections of trans.

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OK, this is starting to get challenging. Pulled the carpet and access panel. The arms have indexes at 90 degrees so they can't just be tweaked. And, rotation 90 degrees won't work - the arms move too far.
So, I set the idlers up to match Howard's picture with the levers pinned in neutral and the rods unattached. Back under the car, the 1-R arm and rod line up great. However, the 2-3 rod ends up rearward from neutral just about in 2nd gear position. Too far back to adjust properly up front.
Stymied again.
This shouldn't be this hard. What's maddening is that by all accounts the arms are properly in their N position and I can't find fault with the linkage assembly or any of the replaced/rebuilt parts.
The new/rebuilt parts are:
- the transmission, with my old arms properly installed.
- new bushings in the idler assembly
- new shift levers on the column
- new idler shaft and bracket

I near the end on this one....

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I'm at a loss too unless the shafts were removed from the cover and perhaps are differently drilled and were switched or the hole for the inner roll pin to forks is drilled so the outer squares line up differently depending on the shaft position. I do not know if either is even possible but since you have just about ruled out everything else there is not much left to look at. You might ask the mechanic if such a thing was possible.

Maybe a dumb question, but are you absolutely sure that the 2nd - high shift lever on the transmission is in neutral and not high gear ?

Thanks BD - At this point there are no dumb questions. The 2-3 shift lever is in the middle position, which is the only position that allows the 1-R lever to move. So, I conclude that the middle must be neutral.

Perhaps you folks could entertain a genuinely dumb question and confirm that for both transmission arms the center position of each arm is in fact, the neutral position.

A second, maybe not so dumb question - this should be a rebuilt/exchange transmission R-9 for a 2106 without electromatic clutch. Purchased from a well known supplier. Is anyone aware of any internal differences or perhaps EC differences that could cause a difference in the position of the transmission arms?

Thanks,
Mark

Mark,

Any chance the length of the connecting shift rods would have been different between models? Different year, or wheelbase?