Manual shifter "disconnected"?

[rico_vancouver]

Hi all - long time no post. It's been a while since I've been on here, as I haven't been driving the SL a lot over the last 5 years (~1500 kms/yr.) and haven't had to do anything remotely mechanical with it in at least 7 years.

Yesterday however, on an hour-long trip back from the golf course, I had to hit the brakes hard for a stop light. When I went to try to put it into first gear, the shifter immediately felt different. My manual transmission has always had a relatively long throw, but now it felt short, and wasn't "crisp" at engaging the gears. I was still able to shift however, but I felt like I was guessing at whether the gear was engaged or not. I was only 5 minutes from home when this happened, so I got back to my garage ok. When I tried to engage reverse to back in, the shifter plunged downward about 6 inches! I pulled it back up to it's normal height, and was able to engage reverse, and put my baby away for a while.

I am planning on getting it towed to my local MB indie shop that is great at these old girls, but I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on probables or any input. Being somewhat of an engineer, it "feels" to me as though the shifter is decoupled from it's fulcrum point, and therefore there's no leverage point to allow the shifter to concisely hit the gears.

Rich
1967 250SL

[al_lieffring]

There are about a dozen plastic bushings at each of the linkage points between the shift lever, rods and the transmission, they are there to reduce vibration transfer into the passenger compartment.
it sounds like several of these have deteriorated and fallen out of place. Have them all replaced not just the ones that have come loose.

[rico_vancouver]

Thx... just found this on the site:

http://www.sl113.org/wiki/TransmissionClutch/Shifter

Sounds like the bushing(s) failed and the cab shift lever ball is wandering around/fell through.

Cheers,

Rich