T-18 Jeep Transmission, maintain, rebuild, replace?

PrestonEckerdt

I have a 1970 CJ5 with a Dauntless V6, T-18 transmission with T-98 top cover, Dana 18 transfer case, and Warn Overdrive. The Jeep has been parked since 2004.
I have got the engine running, the clutch works, but the transmission is stuck in second gear. I consider myself mechanically inclined, although I haven't worked much on vehicles, so this is all pretty new to me.
I managed to get the top plate off and clean up so the forks slide now. Nothing in the transmission moves freely by hand, but maybe that is normal? I have not yet reinstalled the top cover.
I noticed the forks of what looks like a resin that is peeling of the tips, I cleaned this off, should I be concerned? There is about 0.028" to 0.036" of play between the fork and the slider gear.
I'm not sure if I should just put it all together and see what happens, or if I should do something more responsible (whatever that means….).

YJSam

PrestonEckerdt Thank you for the photos! This could be a T98 or a T18. You'd have to count the teeth on the 1st-reverse sliding gear (40 or 43 teeth) to confirm. We offer rebuild kits and we do have the shift rails (we see a lot of pitting on yours) and forks. The new forks do not have the Teflon coating. If your forks are in good condition, we don't see a reason to replace them. It should be able to be shifted manually fairly easily with the lid off. Since it sat for a long time it probably has rusted in a gear (rust is present on second and third gears that we could see) a full disassembly, cleaning, and inspection would be a good idea. The rusted gear may need some soaking with ATF to release. We should have T18 gears available, but the T98 gears not so much. You can email more photos (and gear tooth count) when disassembled and we'll see what we can help you with.

PrestonEckerdt

YJSam I put it all back together and it actually is shifting great, except for some grinding, I'll see if adjusting the clutch linkage helps with that. I'll probably need to flush the fluids again before too many miles.

I think I'll ride this out until I symptomatically have problems.

Thank you for your response!