Sticking in 2nd gear

Greetings

New here but got some great info already. Hoping you guys can help...
My 1989 ex-military V8 110, manual transmission, is having some trouble in the gears department. For a while now, I've been having trouble changing down to 2nd, the gears crunching most of the time. Now I've had a few occasions when it seems stuck in 2nd. I move the gear lever to neutral, but it stays in gear. I can select 1st, 2nd or neutral, but it stays in 2nd wherever I put it. I can get the gear sick into reverse, but when I release the clutch the engine loads up but I don't go anywhere and would eventually stall.

Last night I found that with the engine switched off, I can now change into 3rd, start up and pull away, then change into other gears normally, including neutral (haven't risked 2nd yet!).

My mechanic is saying I need to change the transmission, which is going to be very expensive. Just wondered if this situation rings a bell with anyone and if there might be an "easy" fix before I open up the gearbox from above to take a look?

TIA

Mark

Hi,
I had a similar problem in mine (V8 90 with LT85) where it got stuck in reverse. The engine would load up and stall as if the handbrake were on. It turned out to be that the reverse selector fork on the shaft needed adjusting slightly, and due to its alignment (side to side) with the other forks. The bottom of of the stick was jumping out of the fork, allowing you to select first whilst still in reverse, so stalling the engine. It was easily rectified as access is easy through the top hatch of the box.

Opening the top of the gearbox and adjusting a fork is the easy fix compared to a transmission change. Your mechanic seems to have been a touch hasty in his opinion.