I'm getting an 88 Aries from someone who lost their license a few years ago. The car has been sitting since 2011. Started it up and put it in gear and... nothing. Put it back in park and checked the fluid which was low so I added a quart of atf+4. After that, I put it in gear and it engaged. Had to really step on it so the car could pull itself out of a rut it was stuck in. After that, I noticed that no matter where the selector was, it was always engaged into gear. In drive, it will still shift from one to two no problem and with a bit of slipping it will go into 3rd.
I'm guessing the transmission is shot... I haven't messed with it much further than that... just wanted to make sure it could make the hour drive it needs to make from where it's at to my house... but if it's fixable I'd rather fix it than put in a different transmission.