What's going on here?

Hi all,

Hoping you can help me with a problem with my 1984 SJ410. Spent yesterday doing the usual pre-MOT checks. Moved it around the yard, everything working nicely.

Got in to take it to the test centre today, put it in reverse, let up the clutch and it won’t budge, tried to stall. Feels like the brakes are stuck on. Put it in neutral, go to jump out, and as I lift off the clutch the car shoots backwards! After some experimenting I’ve determined that:

Gearstick in neutral = gearbox in reverse (clutch works fine)
Gearstick in any other gear = drivetrain completely locked (even nudging it with the tractor, it just drags with the back wheels locked). Makes no difference whether the clutch is in or out.

I’m guessing that this is a gear selection issue but I’m not all that technical and I can’t picture what can have happened to give rise to these symptoms.

Anybody got any ideas (or better yet had the same experience)? Thanks very much!
Steve

I havent the experience with SJ's but on a Jimny there are rubber bushes in the gearstick linkage, perhaps these have come apart somehow? That would lead the stick to be producing unexpected gear results.

Top tip is if you do need those bushes pop to halfords and buy classic mini exhaust rubber hangars, which are a neat and very cheap replacement for the proper bushes. Again, thats for a Jimny, but I would expect an SJ to be similar.

Oh, good shout re the Mini exhaust hangers! Thanks.

I'm hoping it's something daft like a shift bush gone. The transfer box got stuck in neutral a few months ago and that was the problem then. A simple and cheap fix once the part had made it's leisurely way from India. In that case though, it'd been playing up for ages slowly getting worse, whereas this has come out of the blue.

I guess I'm going to have to be brave and dive into Gearshift Exploration 101. I've got until November to sort it, by which time it'll need to be back on the road (or rather, off the road), earning its keep.

What could possibly go wrong!!!