Dr.Jeff
True Classic
Man Cliff, this car just keeps throwing you curveballs. 
Oh the joys of owning a Italian car! And some people think I'm crazy when I say these are not reliable daily drivers.
As you know, check the obvious things first; the "lollipop" connector between the long shift shaft and trans input (at the trans end, #16 in pic), and the bolt at the bottom of the shifter lever that connects it to the long shaft (at the hand lever end, inside the tunnel, #1 in pic). Most likely something simple like the bolt that connects the lollipop to the trans fell out (#19), or the rubber portion of the lollipop separated (middle of #16). To me the bolt and nut on the end of the lollipop (#19 and 15) are sort of a oddity; it needs to be loose enough to allow some pivoting, yet not so loose to cause slop or come off. All of my X's had a plain nut there (#15), without any sort of retainer (locking nut or washer, etc) to keep it on. So I always replace it with a nyloc nut to keep it in position.
However, if everything mentioned above checks out and the input selector going into the trans itself is moving as it should (with shifter lever movement), then a really remote (and very unlikely) possibility might be the same thing that happened to my trans. The internal fork that translates the input selector action could have broken. That's the part we discussed previously from your spare parts. Here is how my broken part looked:
That allowed the shifter to flop about with no action in the trans at all. However as I said, this is extremely unlikely...our transmission experts on the forum said they had never seen this before. Another extremely unlikely possibility is a broken shaft like this X owner found:
Unfortunately either of these requires the trans to be torn down to get to it. But I'm certain your issue will be something external (as mentioned above). Let us know what you find, and if you need any parts.
Oh the joys of owning a Italian car! And some people think I'm crazy when I say these are not reliable daily drivers. As you know, check the obvious things first; the "lollipop" connector between the long shift shaft and trans input (at the trans end, #16 in pic), and the bolt at the bottom of the shifter lever that connects it to the long shaft (at the hand lever end, inside the tunnel, #1 in pic). Most likely something simple like the bolt that connects the lollipop to the trans fell out (#19), or the rubber portion of the lollipop separated (middle of #16). To me the bolt and nut on the end of the lollipop (#19 and 15) are sort of a oddity; it needs to be loose enough to allow some pivoting, yet not so loose to cause slop or come off. All of my X's had a plain nut there (#15), without any sort of retainer (locking nut or washer, etc) to keep it on. So I always replace it with a nyloc nut to keep it in position.
However, if everything mentioned above checks out and the input selector going into the trans itself is moving as it should (with shifter lever movement), then a really remote (and very unlikely) possibility might be the same thing that happened to my trans. The internal fork that translates the input selector action could have broken. That's the part we discussed previously from your spare parts. Here is how my broken part looked:
That allowed the shifter to flop about with no action in the trans at all. However as I said, this is extremely unlikely...our transmission experts on the forum said they had never seen this before. Another extremely unlikely possibility is a broken shaft like this X owner found:
Unfortunately either of these requires the trans to be torn down to get to it. But I'm certain your issue will be something external (as mentioned above). Let us know what you find, and if you need any parts.
