ea81 4 speed d/r pops out of neutral

[the sucker king]

The title should say pops out of REVERSE not neutral, I can't seem to edit the post title!!!!!!

 

I had a friend with fabrication skills work on the shift linkage on my lifted hatch. Ever since I got it back, it has been really loud in reverse and pops out of gear (in reverse only- all the forward gears are normal). It is not a matter of the linkage binding or being forced out of gear, it seems to be internal.  I can hold it in reverse to keep it from popping out, but if the stick is left free-floating, it pops out into neutral.

Not necessarily anything my friend did, the timing of the issue could be coincidental.

Any guesses as to what happened?

 

Edited April 24, 2014 by the sucker king

[Subaruist]

Wild, wild, wild guess; I did not see specifics of what model you have, but does  it have a "Hill Holder" brake? could that be part of the problem?

In 1st gen subarus, 1978/79 models mostly, sometimes the 4WD lever could pop out of gear, in one subaru I had, I actually had to use a bungie cord to keep it from popping out of gear. I never really tried to solve the actual problem, but felt it was just some design problem with the tranny.

Could it still be linkage, just not that specific part that was worked on? - could something else under there have been unintentionally altered during the work?

[Adam N.D.J.]

Could be a bad detent, or detent spring.  If you are under the trans looking up at it there should be 3 what look like bolt heads in a row.  I am pretty sure the far driver side one is the reverse detent.  It is best to drain the trans first, then when you take that bolt out it will be hollow with a spring and a small bearing on the top of the spring.  I had my 3-4 detent disappear on me one time, I just found a like size bearing put it on top of the spring and put it back together, worked fine for several more years.