04 Cobra is stuck in gear, will not roll with clutch pushed in, and will die if clutch is released

Hello,

So, I have a 2004 Cobra with about 35,000 on the original transmission and engine. Below is a list of events as the issue came up:

1. At a red light the car stalled while I had the clutch pressed in, however, I was able to start it back up (stalled as in it felt like the clutch had been released)
2. after starting it back up 1st was very jumpy and felt like it wanted to stall again. I was able to use 2nd and on up to limp my way home but I had to rev about 4,000 RPMs to pull off on 2nd from a dead stop.
3. once rolling the car shifted fine and no issues at all
4. arrived in my neighborhood and drove around the block to test 1st out again which seemed to work fine even from a dead stop
5. revered my car into the garage with no issues
6. One hour later I decided to take it for another test drive and pulled out of the garage in 1st as my back tires hit the 1.5-inch drop off on the concrete from the garage to driveway the made a loud grinding sound and the car stalled and the shifter was stuck in 1st (stuck as in I could not pull it out).
7. after a quick 20 second battle with the car on and off, I was able to force it out of gear and into neutral
8. started the car again and was able to get in and out of all gears but then when I tried to reverse it rolled forward with no sign of trying to reverse. That was with me releasing the clutch and giving it gas and the reverse lights were on. Now the shifter is stuck in reverse and it will not come out however the reverse lights are no longer on after it stalled. (Keep in mind the shifter is in the reverse position the transmission might not)

Additional Info:
- Clutch is original
- Don't drag race the car
- This occurred in the afternoon and in the morning on the way to work it gave no sign of trouble
- I have owned the car for going on 11 years and have put about 15,000 miles on it

I have seen several possible solutions like clutch cable adjustment, clutch, and the car possibly being in two gears at once. Has anyone experienced this or does anyone have possible solutions or tests for troubleshooting it?

I'm surprised none of the gurus have jumped in on this. Here goes nothing!

My first suspicion is the clutch cable. Like you said, it's a common culprit that's cheap and simple to replace. Plus they're known to stretch and eventually break over time anyway. If it's got too much play in it, the clutch won't be able to fully disengage. I'd inspect it all the way from the top of the clutch pedal down to the trans for any fraying or binding. I can't remember for certain, but I'm pretty sure the stock cable isn't adjustable at the firewall assuming you don't have anything aftermarket in the mix. However, on the clutch fork end of the cable, there are threads and a nut that will allow for adjustment. If it were me, I'd tighten it a couple turns and see what happens. Don't go crazy. A small adjustment goes a long way. If that solves the issue(s), my next move would be ordering a new OEM cable before this one breaks.

I would try replacing the cable first also. Unless your trans is really screwed up there's not really a chance it's hung up in between gears.

are you still on the original and very flimsy throw out bearing retainer tube for the cobra t-56? they are common failure point. they break at the bottom, close to the cover. it was so common that there was even a tsb from ford about it when the cars first came out.

that would definitely give some of the symptoms you are having.

UPDATE: (3rd paragraph has the problem in case you don't want to read the full post)

So I had some time after work yesterday to take a look at it and was able to successfully back the "shifter" out of reveres. In case you are wondering how I got it out of reverse ... I disassembled the center console and shifter assembly and used a pry bar to put some force on it (honestly it was not that much force and could have probably just been done using the shifter instead of removing it but I already had it removed by the time this idea came across). While applying a little force I had two other friends rock the car back and forth and surprisingly the shifter jumped in to neutral (this was no slight rocking there was some quit some force involved for about 20 seconds)

Now, this is where we realized the problem ... once the shifter was in neutral I put the center console and shifter assembly back together and started the car with the shifter in neutral and the clutch pushed in. I keep referring to the position of the shifter because I had no idea what gear the transmission was in ... I could only see what the shifter position was. Well with the car on and the shifter in neutral I slowly release the clutch and the car began to stall as if it was in gear.

After calling two local mechanics they both confirmed that the transmission was stuck in a gear which is why it would stall if the clutch was released while the shifter was in neutral. Since I had popped it out of reverse I wanted to see if that was the gear that was engaged so I removed the e-brake and with the car in neutral gave it some gas and released the clutch in order to see which direction the car would move in ... to my surprise the car began to roll forward as if I was in gear. Based on the RPMs it required to move I would say 1st gear was engaged even though the shifter was in neutral because it required little to no throttle it pretty much rolled off on its own with just releasing the clutch.

I drove the car around for about an hour and experienced no issues at various different speeds and RPMs. Now that the car was able to at least move I guess its time to see what might have caused this out of nowhere. The transmission was flushed about 5,000 miles ago which is maybe like 5 years ago. Some have recommended putting Pennzoil synchromesh which I might consider along with replacing the clutch cable, clutch, and throwout bearing retainer as recommended in this post just to be on the safe side. If I do end up finding out what exactly caused this issue ill update you all.

My vote is cable split

I had bearing retainer break. This made it hard to get into gears.

I had cable explode. This made it stick in gear.
And hard to get reverse

At one time it was so bad I had to turn off car put in reverse than start just to back up.

Stock cable is self adjusting. Lift up on clutch pedal to adjust

sorry I'm late to this. I have found that getting the clutch cable from Maximum Motorsports was probably the best adjustment I ever did. It fixed the cable stretching issue. I swapped my TOB and my TOB tube and the car felt and shifted so much better.