Direction reverser

[my fathers son]

’58 420 reverser just started jumping out of forward. It had worked fine before without noise or grinding as long as I showed patience in shifting. I attached a lite bungy to keep it in forward direction and used the tran to change direction and it seems to work fine with no banging or thrashing and doesn’t appear to be trying to pop out under load. It seems whatever is wrong, to be fixed, will mean the removal of the reverser itself which I don’t want to get into right now. Somewhere within all the posts I "think" I read that the temporary fix is ok or maybe I’m just dreaming. Knowing full well if I break it I own it.

[Jim B]

Sounds like gear type but, please confirm which reverser you have. Is the shifter on the right or left side? Right side is the gear type. Left side is the later type with wet clutches.

[my fathers son]

Right side

[Lavoy]

There is no temporary fix, and if it is popping out of gear something is wrong. Continuing to run it will likely lead to a more expensive repair down the road. Tying the shifter forward just means that whatever is wrong, you are putting a bunch of stress on the sliding coupler trying to keep it engaged. This means the shift fork and coupler are grinding against each other from all the force, wearing both items and adding metal particles to the lube in the reverser case.
I know it sucks, but once it is rebuilt, no more worries, and they shift so nice.
Lavoy

[my fathers son]

Looks like thats the name of that tune. Looks like I need to reverse direction on my priorities. Thxs.

[Lavoy]

Yeah, they're not fun to get out, but in the long run you won't regret it.
Lavoy