Well crud.... now what?

Hi all.

While accelerating on an interstate onramp, in a somewhat spirited manner (but not as much as at a track), I went to shift from 2nd to 3rd and immediately realized I had a problem. The shifter had zero resistance moving forward and backward but could not move right or left at all. The car was stuck in 2nd gear, and the clutch was still working fine. I limped it home about 8 - 10 miles, mostly on residential streets to avoid traffic on the main roads. I have not had time to look at it since it happened Saturday evening.

I read through some of the other posts about the possibility of a broken shift tower bolt, and if this was the case the fact I made it home without further incident is probably a miracle. I also saw that since mine is stuck in gear, that my repair is potentially a lot worse and more involved if this is indeed what happened.

Is there another, less involved possibility based on the limited side to side movement of the shifter itself? I know all I have to do is look, but I won't have time to do that until probably Wednesday. The car has 170k miles on it and this is the first transaxle/shift linkage issue I've ever had.

I have been in your position three times now. You most likely did break the pin on your shift tower. I have snapped my shift cable before, which has the same symptom. First thing to do is figure out which one you did. Start by looking at your shift tower. If one of the cable ends doesn't seem to be attached, your pin is broken. I hope your repair goes well.

since it is only in one direction of shifter movement I would inspect all the shift cable bushings and cable ends first.

I'd be VERY careful moving the car around. If the shift tower bolt did shear there is a fairly large chunk of metal moving around in your transmission potentialy wanting to put a window in the transmission case...

I eventually broke mine - replaced it and prevented it from creating a magnet fishing worry mess.



If your bolt did shear and the transmission is stuck in gear you WILL NOT be able to pull out the shift tower and you will need to remove the transmission and pop it apart to get it out

I sure hope it is a cable end - good luck.

Well, not as bad as it could have been I guess...

Well, not as bad as it could have been I guess...

I finally had some time to start looking into this. I first looked around the shifter to make sure nothing seemed broken there, and all looked good.

I then looked at the transaxle from above, and it looked like one of the pins where the cable was supposed to connect was bare. So I pulled off the front left wheel and saw this:





I guess this was probably the best alternative in my situation, compared to having the shift tower bolt break while in gear.....

So, how do I fix this? Do I just need to get a new bushing to insert into the white plastic piece and so it can go on the pin again? Or do I need more of the end piece, including the white plastic item with the orange thing and re-attach it to the cable?

My Haynes manual is not very helpful on this subject....

You can get away with swapping the bushing out, or attempting to replace the end. The prior is much easier

Thanks Pud...

After a little more searching, I found this gem...

http://www.contour.org/ubbthreads/s...mber=1016661&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=1&vc=1

which is exactly what I needed.

I'll pick up the cable end part number F7RZ-7412-AA and pop the bushing out of it and put it in the ends already on the car. Should be quick to do based on feedback in that thread...

Yay!! not a major repair!!

is shift cable end held on by bushing only?

is shift cable end held on by bushing only?

I just diagnosed the same problem as described above - the bushing on the shift cable end is worn out, and I plan to replace it. But is the cable end held on just by the bushing, or is there some sort of cap or snap ring or something to hold the bushing on? Also, the black plastic shield around my cable is broken like the one pictured in the post above. Should I replace that while the shift cable is off? Just out of curiosity, what is that "orange thing" on the shift cable end? It's got a spring in there, and the whole orange part can be depressed against the spring into the white plastic cable end. Is it some kind of shock absorber? Thanks, perfesser

That spring-loaded "orange thing" is what holds the connector on the end of the cable. The cable had a square head with teeth on opposing sides. The corresponding orange parts also have teeth. When depressed and locked, the orange teeth push away from the cable, allowing the connector to slide off.

As far as the dust shield, I've got a broken one too. Hasn't given me any problems.

My car does the same thing - I got the replacement cable end, but as a temp fix I took a washer, ground 1/3 of it off (to make a C ) and them put the shift cable on and used a pliers to crimp it on the end. Well - that temp fix became permanent and when I broke a shift tower bolt AGAIN (bolt broke, welds held the bolt in and allowed me to keep shifting - until the welds tore off the tower) and I had to tear apart my car in the work parking lot. I pried off the washer mod and replaced the shift tower bolt and reused the washer again to hold the cable on. It has been going strong for over 20K - damn replacement part is still in the trunk...