Shifter problem

I was looking at an nice 320i 1982. Its a 5 speed. The thing is that the shifter is just loose. When its in gear it feels like its in neutral. It almost impossible to put it into the 2nd gear, and when its in the second the shifter is like 30 degrees to the floor. I expect some slack form it (365000 kms rebuilt engine and replaced tranny), but not that much. I have no experience with german trannies and shifters, but the owner says its the linkage problem (I think too). The thing is that it has all gears and theres no syncro problems or grinding.

Do those tranies have some sort of shift plate with a ball joint and a link or the shifter just goes right into the tranny?

Is it possible to have an original not rebuilt 1.8l engine in a BMW. (How commen?) I am a pretty experienced mechanic with american cars. (and say that its rare)

I did my homework and researched the shifter. It turns out that shifters fail a lot.

Is it possible that they can lead to this condition?

The guide sleeves might be worn. You may have to disassemble the gearbox to see what's going on in there.

but anyway the shifter can not be that loose. I think its bearings and entire shift linkage going with all the bushing. I heard its very common with those trannies. if you say the sleves are worn if would be pretty loose but not that much. Otherwise it would not go into any gear! It works fine in any gears (also people say that 2nd gear is the hardest to shift into when the shifter is done.)

iam buying the car for dirt cheap and not planning to repalce or work on the tranny. I already have 86 trans am project.

Also what kind of level of expertise and experince? Or it was just a guess about the sleeves that so severly worn?

looks like the forum is dead. Iam wondering how you even got 13000 posts here anyway.

I think it is the linkage and it is above the trans.. you could go under the car and see if you could move it with your hand... you should be able to tell what part is worn from there...

finally thats what i wanna hear!

I went under the car today and found that the shifter is fine, but the most surprising thing is that the shift plate doesnt hold to anything and just sits there on a little rubber tail (thats it) It moves about 2 inches back and forth ans inch side to side. I think its totally wrong. So I figured that the palte should connect to the tranny than with bolts. (it looks like theres a nocth for the bolt) Otherwise the shift to second and forth just wont happen.

How do I fix this?

I fixed it. All it needs is two rubber bushings and a bolt on which the shifter plate sits-very easy to do. For all you owners of 320 cars its the shifter plate when you arent able to shift the car into second or forth gears.

Check this out. 11 posts and 9 of them are mine

Iam post whoring