Replacement MT wont shift into reverse
 

I ruined my MT in my 1982 240D by losing all the ATF over a period of years. I got a junkyard tranny from an '83 240D said to be good and I put it in today. 1.2.3.4 all shift fine move the car in the garage but I have no reverse. The third shifter was a little bent and I replaced it with the reverse lever from my dead tranny. I did have to loosen the clutch slave feed line slightly and lost a tiny bit of fluid. Did I monkey with the lever adjustment? I have a likely unrelated vacuum issue because the car wont shut off as I must have pulled off the IP shut off line. Any ideas out there in guru land?

Take the rod off. See if you can manually get the gear moved into place. Test may be to keep one rear wheel immobile. Other should not be able to turn in gear. Failure of any gear is possible but seldom reverse in a manual transmission.

That the original reverse rod was bent is interesting though. They why and how is an unknown.

Barry, the shift levers all move fine on the tranny. I pulled the leather shifter boot off and can see that the shift rod wont go fully left while lifting up. Since it wont go fully left I can't advance the shifter fwd into reverse. Are 82 trannys different from '83's? I can't move the shifter into reverse even when the shift rods are disconnected from the transmission. This is a near perfect low mile 240D.