95 Conv. Z Shifter issue
 

Hello,
I had this car come into the shop because the customer couldn't shift the trans into manual first. Upon further inspection, i found that the shifter had a plastic stop in it that was preventing the shifter from going down past second. Have any of you guys with convertible Z's found this? Does your car shift to First? This stop was defiantly factory. So im trying to figure out if the factory didn't want the cars to be able to shift to first for some reason (and why they wouldn't want that) or was this a defective shifter?
Thanks for your help...

Found that there are two different shifter part numbers for the car 12558644 (For 2.73 rear end gear) and 12558643 (for 3.23 gears). So it seems that the difference is in the final drive ratio. For some reason GM didn't want the user to manual shift to first depending on the final drive ratio but why? And which ratio had the restriction?

wonder if its a ex rental car.

my 2000 has the first gear lockout for low traction conditions but its done in the trans and a switch.

I suppose that it could have been a rental car, but there is only 52K on the clock... I looked in the owners manual, thinking that they would have documented this had it been some factory limitation, but there was no notes or anything where it was talking about how to use the shifter... The stop is part of the plastic detent guide in the shifter mechanism. That piece of plastic is molded(not bolted or screwed) to the metal shifter assembly. there is no electronic solenoid or anything to keep the shifter from going down, just this stop. It must have been a defective shifter and nobody at the factory or dealership or the original owner ever noticed.
I took a dremel tool and ground the stop down to where the shifter would go down into first and all is well. Very strange.