I am doing an engine swap... is all back in.
as I was installing the gear shif, I pull the shifter out, as i was doing it i move the lever in to gear.The trans is in gear (don't know if it is in first or second gear)I can't move the shifting lever once I put it back in. the shifter will move side to side but it will not move forward of back. any ideas???

87 Wrangler 5 speed peugeot trans  

anyone ever solve this? i have the same problem  

Did you happen to have the Xmsn in gear or nuetral when you first pulled the stick out?  

if the output won't turn, spin the engine over by hand or rock it a bit with the drive shaft installed.  

i think the problem was that when the person who had the transmission before me pulled the stick out it was in gear, im pretty sure thats what the problem is because if i start it w/ my foot on the clutch and then let it out ill start to roll forward. i can move the stick left and right like the sticks in neutral but it wont go in and out of gear  

I have the same issue with my 88. Anyone figure it out?  

maybe the shift fork isnt on the gears properly? andthats why you have a sloppy stick that moves side to side. take the top cover off and see.  

Guys, I was able to figure it out, and I wanted to post how I did it. In essence, keithpapa was exactly right. Here was my situation, and I assume yours will be the exact same.

Ok... so as you look down into the hole where the shift lever goes, you are basically staring at the shifting forks. There are three sets of forks in the tranny. They sit three in a row horizontally (drivers side to passengers side) and each fork runs vertically. (front to rear) Above the forks is a spring loaded sliding guide. This is the mechanism that provides the pressure to spring the stick back to the neutral location if you pull the stick to one side or the other. Anyway, that spring loaded guide is going to come to a resting position over the number two fork (the middle one), and so if your tranny was in first gear, like mine was, this sliding guide will actually be covering the first/second gear fork. This would be the right most (passenger side) fork. Assuming that your tranny is in first or second, to seat the shift lever properly, you need to push the spring loaded guide as far to the right as possible, exposing the level hole in the right-most fork. I did this with a flat head screw driver... this will expose the correct 'fork hole' that the shift lever needs to be inserted into in order to return to it's correct position.

If you do not do this, then you are effectively shoving the shift lever into the middle fork and trying to put it into 3rd,4th,5th or reverse when the tranny is already in first gear! Hence the ability to move the stick side to side, but not forward and back.

Anyway, it's really really easy... I just had to look at the hole long enough, and understand what I was trying to *** once it dawned on me that I needed to move the spring loaded guide to the right, it took me about 20 seconds to seat the level correctly. The moral of the story is to remove the shift lever with the tranny in neutral, and you will not have this issue.  

I had the same problem.. I parked, then went to get back in to go home, and it was stuck in first. I followed the instructions above and it worked great. I wanted to post a photo of what the hole looks like. It took longer to remove the covers then it did to fix it.