fifth and reverse not there

2008, 987.1 Cayman : i tried to shift into reverse and it did not go in at first, then i got it into gear, backed up and moved along. later on the same drive i tried to shift into fifth and there was nothing there: the lever moved into position but the trans remaining in neutral. once i parked i tried reverse again and there was nothing there either. all cables are connected and move into the correct position. shop researched some documentation and there is evidently a shear pin controlling that selector fork. anyone come across a similar situation? thanks for reading

Mazdazebra, there is one thread about the same issue: https://www.planet-9.com/threads/3rd-gear-disappeared.233479/?post_id=2234770#post-2234770

What was recently done with your Cayman ?

Thanks. My shop is concerned that they will not be able to get the needed part

I did brakes in the spring and nothing else this year. I had no difficulty shifting until this failure.

You may have to ship the gearbox to a Porsche gearbox specialized shop. Where do you live?

massachusetts.

The first time I removed the gearbox myself and ship it to GBox in Colorado, using a $50 Walmart large ice chest that I had to cut two slots inside for the bellhousing sides, it arrived great both ways. The second time I drove it to California Motorsports in Lake Havasu AZ and they ship it back to me on a pallet after they replace second gear synchro and a new 5-6 gear selector fork. Since your gearbox is already out of the car I would pick it up from the shop and ship it to California Motorsports, they have access to the Porsche spare parts. CALIFORNIA MOTORSPORTS INC 2175 N KIOWA BLVD STE 108 LAKE HAVASU CITY AZ 86403 Telephone [phone removed] Email [email removed] Hours 8am-5pm AZ time Monday-Friday Saturday by appointment only californiamotorsports.net

What's your shop in MA, @Mazdazebra ? I'm also here in MA. Maybe I can help steer you to the right shop (if I can?).

Reach out to Kevin at [email removed] . Just west of Boston.

I would be very careful with CMS. They didn't adequately QC/test my friend's 997 GT3 gearbox after they rebuilt it and he spent over a year trying to get them to make it right. Eventually he gave up and someone else re-rebuilt the box. This is fairly recent (< 2 years ago). I am not steering OP either way but I think it's important to have multiple data points. I have heard great things about Gbox and Copans for Porsche transaxle rebuilds and re-gearing.

FYI, GBox screwed up my gearbox and a couple of months after they replaced the pinion shaft bearing the pin of the 5-6 gear selector came loose, that is the reason I send it to CMS (as recommended by Vision Motorsports and Hergesheimer Motorsports), personally I got great support from CMS, sorry to hear about your friend.

I know Sharkwerks uses CMS for their gearbox work (almost none of the big shops inc. Vision, DeMan, etc. do transmission work in house). If I were to speculate, the quality of work that the transmission shops do for transmissions that come from Porsche speed shops definitely is better than work that they do on transmissions sent by private customers. That's just my $0.02 - OP can definitely find good shops on the east coast.