Ok, so i just started noticing this about 3 months ago and it is getting worse.

When i go from a dead stop i will shift into 1st as usual, then i will shift into 2nd, but sometimes it will not stay in gear.

It doesnt POP out of gear, it just sort of "lilts" out of gear. When it lilts out, it is about 3 microns away from engaging the gear.

Once i am driving and under power, it stays where it should and has the same "neutral resistance" as the other gears.

There is also a noticeable lack of resistance when upshifting to 3rd. All the other gears have a nice mechanical feel to them, but 2nd doesnt anymore.

The transmission is a marlin l52hd by the way.


Shifter seat? And bushing?

Something waaaay worse?

 

How old is it?

My L52HD had an issue where it started popping out of gear about two years after I installed it. Some pin or dowel or something had come loose. Of course it was past warranty. I wasn't happy, considering how proud they are of their transmissions. Didn't get any kind of apology or anything. Just a "you're past warrant; you can ship to us to repair it if you want and we'll let you know how much it costs".

 

Well the shifter seat and bushing are way easy too check. Just pull up the boots and uninstall the shifter, see what that seat looks like. Also the two pins on either side can come loose and cause odd shifting issues.

 

Check the shifter seat and bushing, and the side pins, and if that doesn't locate the problem, you've probably got a worn detent ball or spring. It doesn't look like they're accessible from outside the transmission, so you'd have to drop the trans and open up the top cover.

The other possibility is worn dovetailing on the collar gears (read: "full rebuild"). I'm betting it's not that.

 

Thats good to hear, i also have about 4 inches of slop in the shifter once it is in gear, i dunno if thats normal or not.

Ill get a new seat and bushing. They are so cheap there is no reason not to.

Those pins you are mentioning are intresting, i will definitely investigate.


I think it is an earlier l52hd, it is at least prior to 2008ish

 

Look at the shifter and seat first. I mean yeah, they're cheap, but looking at them will take you 30 minutes.

That's a lot of slop when in gear.

 

Kinda' odd a marlin crawler seat would fall apart that fast.

 

I wonder if they had their new & improved seats in 08? Might be more or less oem.