Mine toO was a PIA to line up with that reverse gear rod as the trany was still in the track .. of course I was working alone and desperately needed a second set of hands. I bought one of those cameras at Harbor Freight with the flexible shaft, tied a piece if string around the rod and used the camera to line up the rod with the reverse gear and the string to line up the rod and the gear with the tower in place... worked pretty slick.
I went thru my shift tower and as others have said you need to have the ball bearings, springs and shafts in the correct sequence in order for your shifter to work correctly. Took some pics as I disassembled the tower just to make sure I could put it back together properly..I do the same with watches and clocks when I restore them. It really helps, but even then I had a ball out of sequence. The 1st time I installed my tower I had the same issue but with 3rd and 4th gears, would not shift! Redid the tower and all worked fine .. that's when I got the camera, because I just could not get the shifter into the reverse gear .. the shift rod would drop in towards the trany gears because of gravity and miss the hole on the reverse gear. My knuckles are still scared from punching the wall LOL.
