"Loose" Gearshifter - CEG Archives

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1999 SE w/75k miles, love the car.

The gearshift, for lack of a more technical term, feels loose. Clutch is fine, shifts with little effort.
When in gear, the gearshift (the stick itself)seems to have a lot (more than 1") of play. It never drops out of gear, but it seems sloppy. Is this a linkage problem? Easy and cheap to address, or tricky and $$?

Originally posted by MJF4:
1999 SE w/75k miles, love the car.

The gearshift, for lack of a more technical term, feels loose. Clutch is fine, shifts with little effort.
When in gear, the gearshift (the stick itself)seems to have a lot (more than 1") of play. It never drops out of gear, but it seems sloppy. Is this a linkage problem? Easy and cheap to address, or tricky and $$?

Check out this thread and see if this is what you are experiencing.

http://www.contour.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=tranny&Number=1045416&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=all&vc=1

Except that thread is about older rod shifters, where MJF4's tranny would be a cable shift. Sounds like his problem is one of the problems that has many threads, but no real answers -- the cable ends are worn out. After reading about 12-15 threads about that last week (none really had a conclusion... the threads just faded/died), it sounds like Ford doesn't just sell the ends anymore and that you'd need to buy the entire cable, or get the ends from a junk yard. If someone has different information (for the 1999-2000 Contours), please speak up.

Do you have to pull the transmission to replace the cables? And has anyone else experienced this "loose" feeling, replaced the cables, and had that feeling go away?

Originally posted by MJF4:
1999 SE w/75k miles, love the car.

The gearshift, for lack of a more technical term, feels loose. Clutch is fine, shifts with little effort.
When in gear, the gearshift (the stick itself)seems to have a lot (more than 1") of play. It never drops out of gear, but it seems sloppy. Is this a linkage problem? Easy and cheap to address, or tricky and $$?

Ok, sounds like you may of had a bushing break apart in the clamp and your clamp is just hanging onto the shift tower. easy to asses, jack the car up on the driver side and take the wheel off. get under the car and you will be able to see the shift cables and shift tower on the back side of the engine. your clamps will be either white or black, look at both of them and if the bushing is missing or broken into pieces get it fixed immediately. this is a $10 part from ford. I had to replace the one closest to the wheel well as it lost its bushing and drove home in 4th gear. they accidently gave me the clamp for the one closest to the center of the engine(the harder of the two to replace), if thats the one you need hit me up, I still have it and will sell it to you for $7 shipped. Let us know what you find out.

Mike

first thing to do is pull up the shifter boot and check to see if the screws that hold the shifter bracket in place are loose. although ford often used only 2 screws, there are holes for 4 and 4 should be used. after this is checked, then move to the cable ends.

I think I'll root (in terms of easiest first) for ibub's resolution, then LCraze777's.

Tony2005, thanks for the link.
I did search, using 'gear', 'shifter', or 'manual transmission' but didn't find anything. I'll try again.

Suprised by Morbid's information (our year or newer is a cable, not a rod).

I will have to muddle thru with this problem for a couple of weeks, but promise to post my resolution when I have one.
Thanks again to all reply-ees.

Originally posted by ibub:
first thing to do is pull up the shifter boot and check to see if the screws that hold the shifter bracket in place are loose. although ford often used only 2 screws, there are holes for 4 and 4 should be used. after this is checked, then move to the cable ends.

I had the exact same problem (way too much play in shifter and hard to get in 1st/2nd) and this is exactly what was wrong. Four holes, but only 2 screws and they were so loose I literally pulled them out straight out. Once I tightened the screws everything was fine, and getting 2 more is on my to-do list. Can't believe the bean-counters only allowed 2 screws to be installed at the factory

I found it... It's a small white plastic piece right where the shifter meets the pulley that moves when you shift left and right. I will post pics when I fix it. There was like a little tooth missing on it and it was sticking out. To be continued....

Sucks. I am having a hard time finding the bushing that keeps the shifter from wobbling... I checked a few ford parts online spots, googled it, went to local part shops and even junk yards. The bushing can only be bought with the full shifter arm kit. That sucks. I'm still looking.

I gave up. I'm gonna upgrade to a short shifter. No one has that bushing and everyone wants to sell you a full stock shifter set up.