I'm putting my '64 Dart parts car back together. The engine and transmission were mated before being installed in the car. When I was trying to bolt up the driveshaft, I noticed that I can't spin the output shaft of the transmission with it in neutral or any other gear.

This transmission worked fine when it was pulled, but the parking pawl had been dragging after bits of the broken speedo gear got into the parking gear and jammed things up. I pulled the extension housing off the body and fished out all the pieces, and after I reassembled it, the tailshaft spun freely on the bench. The only other thing we did was pull the front pump to replace the drive gears and front seal. I'm pretty confident my friend did that part right, but I did not check to see if the tailshaft spun after the front pump was reinstalled or after we mated the trans to the engine.

I installed the shift cable and adjusted it per the FSM procedure. I also adjusted the kickdown band per the FSM. The pushbutton mechanism operates freely. I do not have the parking lever hooked up, as I'm missing a couple of the difficult-to-find bits. Instead, I blocked off the holes in the parking lock cover and bolted it up with nothing engaging the parking pawl lever. We did this before to the racecar and it worked fine. Besides, it doesn't feel like the park lock is engaged. I'd expect there to be a little play in that case. But this feels like it's locked up tight trying to spin it in either direction.

Just as a check, I bumped the starter with the shifter placed in Drive. The engine spun freely just like it did in Neutral, but the tailshaft did not move.

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Somehow I ended up owning three 1964 slant six A-bodies. I race one of them.
Escape Velocity Racing

....its not a problem yet.

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

After we actually got the engine running, the tailshaft did in fact become free. I know the transmission needs hydraulic pressure to do basically anything, so I guess the engine needed to be running to shift into neutral from wherever it was. It must have become locked somehow, somewhere between having it on the bench and mounting it in the car.

Situation resolved! Now I just need to tighten everything that's leaking...

_________________
Somehow I ended up owning three 1964 slant six A-bodies. I race one of them.
Escape Velocity Racing