Well I just wanted to give an update. We left off with my wife getting car back from dealer in worse shape than when we took it to them. After being at the dealer for four days the tech asked if I had the OEM clutch so he could put it in to see if that solved problem or if the tranny needed to be torn down. I took it to him Thursday afternoon and he did the install late Friday/early Saturday. We took delivery around noon on Saturday. I took it for a test drive and beat on it pretty good just to make sure the noise was not hiding under easy driving conditions.. Sounded good. She drove as well and approved of repair. Tech had gone home so I was not able to see what he had possibly done other than the clutch swap back to OEM. We were very surprised to find a $600 dollar bill for the clutch install. We were told that we requested to have the clutch put in. Nobody of any importance was available to argue the point so I paid bill and took our car. It was still stiff shifting into reverse even after the dealer replaced the shifter linkage. Wife was complaining a little about that and I reminded her that she signed off on that repair when we initially got the car the previous weekend. She drove the car all week and on Friday told me her skip shift eliminator was not working. I figure it burnt out somehow but thought I'd take a quick look to make sure it was plugged in tight. What a surprise I had to discover the SSE was not plugged in where it should be but into the reverse sensor. I plugged it in and lo and behold reverse was now smooth as butter. I don't know who I am more mad at
. Myself for not checking it sooner or the original guy who did the clutch install and put it back wrong or the dealer for not knowing their ass from a hole in the ground. Sorta can't blame them since they really only know OEM equipment but to think the linkage was replaced and it was still hard to shift into reverse. Wouldn't you have dug deeper and maybe compared the wiring to another vehicle if something did not appear correct. Now the original clutch installer is the real reason that we had to go thru all of this and spend all the money we did just to end up at the place we started. If he had only marked the wiring and plugged everything back as it came to him we would have been good and wife would have learned to drive with the clutch we installed. Of course, I am ultimately to blame for not looking harder into it and checking. Everything I have read indicates you can not shift into reverse if SSE is plugged into the wrong place. Well I'm here to tell you that you can shift into reverse if it is plugged in wrong. It isn't easy but it certainly can be done.
So long story short, double check your SSE if you have recently had tranny work and are having a hard time shifting into reverse. Thx for reading and thx for trying to help us figure this out. Still selling clutch. Its on the Members for sale thread if anyone is interested.
Mike