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Out of the blue, my transmission lost first and reverse gears in the Walmart parking lot. How embarrassing - I had to push it out of its parking space.

My buddy and I checked out the steering linkage. Everything seems fine at the shifter assembly, so we looked back at the transmission. The heim joint is bad, so I'm going to have to replace that. But that's not the source of the problem. Shifting it by hand at the tranny, we can get it into every gear except 1st and reverse.

Before we get too far into tearing this all down, can anyone make any suggestions? Has anyone had this happen to them before?

*edit* It turned out to be the heim joint. It needs to be replaced, but after greasing it, it's been shifting well again.

Look for a broken fork pivot pin or broken fork.
If the pin is broken, extract and replace it.
I do bench repairs on transmissions if needed

Thanks for the advice, Jim. You are a wonder.

What's the best way to go about extracting the pin or fork?

If it is the pin, it will be the one located next to the I.D. plate.
The pin tends to break off the end tab and fall into the fork groove preventing movement. I have used a scribe, and in some cases have had to drill into the pin and use an extractor.
If the fork is broken, the case must be split to access the fork.