Sloppy shifter no 5th gear

[JasonC]

i have a 85 eta. and the shifter was a little sloppy till today. Now it has a long throw like a old truck, and there is no 5th gear. I can try to put it in 5th and it will grind alittle like it is on the edge of the gear and won't go in. I have not crowled under it yet to see if the shift linkage is worn completly out. i seen that pelicanparts.com has a shifter rebuild kit, is that what i need if the shifter is worn out?

[PiercedE30]

in case of worn out shifter, get shifter rebuild kit + a stock z3 shifter for the added performance of a short shifter for a fraction of the cost. (some sarcasm there for ya)

[JasonC]

I got in the car today and went to put it in neutral and the shifter would just go in any direction. So i jacked the car up to fix the proplem and when i looked up at the shifter i saw that the linkage had broken. I don't know what kind of metal it was made of but it did weld up. So when the shifter rebuild kit gets here i'll just put in later. Is this a common proplem with the linkage braking?