Park not engaging
 

Ok, so a new one cropped up after putting a few hundred easy miles on the old girl. Park no longer engages correctly when the car is positioned to roll backwards. It seems to have no problem engaging if the car rolls forwards...but even a slight incline that causes it to roll backwards generates a ka-tunk--ka-tunk sound, 4-5 times usually, before park engages.

Is there any adjustment for this, or could it be that the mechanism that locks the trans when in park is just tired?

The first and easiest thing I would check would be the linkage adjustment to be sure its not holding the trans shaft from full rotation to park, causing the pawl to stay partially up causing a weak engagement, if that's ok, I would say your park pawl or the toothed drum it engages with are worn, slight rounding or tapering from wear will cause that to happen.

On my 280C, it was the two plastic bushings in the shift linkage. If I "threw" the lever into park, there was enough inertia to make it work.

Michael

Park not engaging. Have Park spend more time learning about things that are of interest to others.

Have that on my 4.5 as well. Too lazy to take apart the tranny to fix it. The pawl is amazingly undersized for vehicles this weight. Use the parking brake, or get to the pawl and bend it back into its original shape!

Ha, ya, I guess I need to create more appropriate social situations for my tranny. Live and learn. :P

The thing about the parking brake - well, I modified the pedal (made it considerably shorter) to accomodate my kick-panel speaker enclosure. The down-side to that mod is that I have less leverage on the pedal, so I'm going to have to be absolutely sure I'm engaging it fully from now on. And turn the wheels to the curb. :rolleyes:

It's not consistent, which makes it even more dangerous. I'll change the linkage bushings, but it feels pretty solid as is.

Well, if you like mods and you're looking for leverage, I have a few column mount pull lever trigger lock handles left over from an old 63 chevy, or, maybe the lever handle and pull grip unit that sticks thru the floorboard in my 39......kinda looks like the ones on the cable cars in SFO. Like to see some teenager try to figure out how to drive that one,lol...

I took the rear bolt out and swiveled the brake assembly to clear my kick panel speaker mod.

RHD cars had a hand pull e-brake mounted under the dash toward the center of the car. You might be able to retrofit one to your car.

Michael

Great idea!