WOW!  4 PAGES!!!

Great...glad to hear this thread may do someone besides me some good.  Another tip, after you get the console and rubber boots off and the shifter out, the water will be down in a hole in the adapter box on top of the tranny.  I used a plastic syringe (sp?) with a piece of tubing on the end to draw the water out.  After I did that I sprayed a little WD-40 down in it (WD-40 displaces water, so I figured it couldn't hurt).  I cleaned the shifter and the spring and metal collar all with brake cleaner.  Then I lubed them up with quite a bit of bearing grease.  Now the shifter is a little stiff in the morning, but it still shifts fine.  Once it's warmed up it's perfect.  Also, make sure your friend used GL-4 Gear oil, not GL-5 (GL-5 corrodes the brass synchros in GL-4 trannies).  I used GL-5 at first (no one stocked any GL-4) until I got some GL-4 the next week.  After changing from Coastal brand GL-5 to Redline MT-90 GL-4, I can tell a difference.  It shifts smoother than with the GL-5.  We had a wintry mix the last few days here, so still no no water pics, but I'll get 'em ASAP...just so you guys can see what came out.

Bryan

Water in the tranny! I went through this years ago when I got water contamination and didn't realize after a DEEP water crossing. I coudn't get it out of gear until it warmed up and disolved/broke up/melted the water.
Easy way to check is drive or idles it till it is loose and warmed up.....then remove the tranny fill plug and see if it's milky in color. May have to stick a pinky finger or screw driver in the hole to check.
Let me know the results.........I bet it's water though!

This was the 5th post?......but it took 4 pages and 40 replies later to figure it out? What am I missing here?*

This was the 5th post?......but it took 4 pages and 40 replies later to figure it out? What am I missing here?*

Yes...that was the 5th post.....

And if you read that post, you should have at least read the 1st post, where I stated that I had already changed the gear oil in the tranny.  So if that was the cause, I would have fixed it before I had posted and this thread wouldn't even exist.  But instead, the water was in the upper adapter box on top of the tranny, which has no passages to the actual tranny, so if water gets in it, it doesn't drain with the rest of the gear oil out of the tranny...

This was a very informative thread, yes a few posts here and there may be a little OT, but the thread over all is very helpful, as you can see by NY_SIDEKICKER's post.....and yes you also just added to that 40 replies making yet another useless post to a helpful thread.

Bryan

no such thing as a useless post..... it usually tends to help someone   if nothing more than helping someone pass time reading all the b.s. we post in here on a daily basis  
                         thanks   matty d.

TTT

Well, this post just helped out another fellow zuker. This is exactly the problem with the 93 Tracker formerly of BionicOnion and now I know how to fix it without draining and re-filling the tranny(again, because he said he just had it done). Thanks everyone for their input!

I thought I'd bring this post back to the front with some pictures of the shift box that sits on top of the tranny. You can see here that fluid does not pass between the box, and the transmission itself. So DO NOT fill your tranny from the shifter hole!