ah, I thought the sticks usually had a tach. our 87 GL has a tach and its an automatic. the tach is where the clock is, and the clock is moved up to a smaller clock on the center console.

 

You should stop driving it and check the following:

Look at the clutch/trans/shifter assemblies for anything suspicious. Check trans fluid level, safely get under the car, remove the fill plug, stick finger in and check level/condition and top up if necessary. Check shifter linkage ~ adjust and grease as necessary. Check the clutch fork/throw out bearing for looseness. I've seen an incorrectly installed throw out bearing get cocked sideways and not allow full clutch release.

It could be a number of things, the point is to find out what it and repair it before you end up with something bigger/more expensive unnecessarily.

 

So if the transmission was out it wouldn't even drive, and if the clutch was out it would stall at stops. So it's probably my gear box.. Is this sounding somewhat correct

 

this car needs someone who knows what they are doing to look at it, trying to play 20 questiuons and guess whats wrong isn't productive.

 

I got the airconditoner fan to stop. I am now able to shift into 3rd from 2ND. I will ask a hundred questions in attempt to deduce the source of problem. IM not guessing,

 

well, the next step is to pull the transmission, inspect the clutch, and if the clutch is fine, tear the transmission down to figure out whats wrong. thats way far out of my comfort zone.

 

Will a transmission from a 240 work in a 245

 

a 245 is simply a 240 wagon, while a 244 is a 240 sedan. in later years they stopped putting the 244/245 designation on the tail (although its still on the nameplate under the hood)

what counts is that its the right transmission. most American market 240/244/245's were automatics, using AW70 transmissions (or BW55 on older ones). the stick shifts are relatively rare, and could be several different models, M46 being the common 4-speed plus electric overdrive, while the M47 was a later model 5-speed stick shift. the M46 is probably what you have, if you were to switch, you would need to change out the shift linkage too, and possibly the front half of the drive shaft (they came in a couple different lenghts to mate with different transmissions). The m46 is a heavier duty transmission, the m47 was considered somewhat more fragile and weaker.

but its still quite possible your problem is entirely clutch or shift linkage related, and swapping the transmission would be unnecessary. this needs to be properly diagnosed.