need help with the shift linkage?

Try disconnecting the linkage and place it in park on both the shifter and trans.
Then adjust the linkage to slip back togeather at that point,
without any tension.
Mine has a slide with a ball and nut,
loosen the nut slide shifter to park or 1st and set trans the same and tighten.

The spinning and grinding is the starter not meshing with the flywheel gear.
Is it the correct starter for your application? Ie, auto or stick?
they are different in the gear drive tooth count.

PB

65stang289 said:

I got my C4 in the car and everything went out and bought a yoke at the shop in town that set me back $76.00 just for a damn yoke. OK I put it on and everything its ready to go. I spent 5 hours trying to get this thing to work I can either have first or park. When I get it to go in to park some times it wont go all the way the car will jerk back. So I have all othere gears now but park. Then my starter blew up on me in traffic for some reason the car will just shut off like there is a bad ground. I went to go start it up and it was just spinning and grinding. The last 2 times I have driven my beast she has left me walking

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Compound problems are always more difficult to troubleshoot than individual ones. I think you have three problems:

a. Transmission linkage. I would disconnect the linkage and operate the lever on the side of the transmission and see if it detents a number of times. Since you did a transmission swap its possible you have a C4 from a different model year that has more/less selections. E.g. you may have P, R, N, D, L or P, R, N, D1, D2, L. The number of detents needs to match the number of indicated selections available at the shifter.

b. Car dying after start. The circuit for running the car originates with the ignition switch. (1) Power on the "R" (run) terminal of the ignition switch goes to a resistor wire, in-turn the firewall plug, in-turn the under hood engine harness, and finally, the coil. (2) Additionally, the ground return for the coil goes through the engine block, distributor, points & condenser, to the coil.

Try this first. Rig up a wire from the battery (front solenoid terminal is fine) to a kill switch, from there to a block coil resistor (find at O'Reillys, Autozone, etc.) and from the block resistor to the coil (+ or BAT) terminal. When you wish to run the engine, flip switch then start car normally. If the problem with dying disappears then the solution is to work to find the poor connection in (1) above. Use a ohmmeter to check ground wiring (2) and operate points manually to see if points work as expected. That is, with coil (+ BAT) disconnected, connect ohmeter between the engine ground and the coil (- NEG) terminal. The ohmmeter needle or indicator should swing between zero and infinity as the engine is cranked.

c. Starter not working right. The most likely cause of the starter not working right is a bad battery. Take your battery out and take it to a parts place (O'Reilly's, Autozone, etc.) having a battery checker. Battery check should include load test. Be sure the battery is fully charged before starting the test. If the battery is good, the following could be faults:

- defective solenoid
- crummy battery cables (must be like new, have good connectors and no corrosion).
- defective starter motor or bendix
- bad flywheel

Good luck,

Jeff