Loose Shift Lever Gears Dont Change How to Diagnose Shift Linkage

Oh, hey, Sue.

Hey, Jeff.

You wanna go with me to pick up lunch?

Sure. Team A ordered it?

Yeah.

Nice. Let's go. I'm starving.

All right. Let's go.

Awesome. So what did you get?

Oh, steak and cheese.

Oh, dude. I thought the wife wanted you to lose 10 pounds from this thing.

Well, I'll get there eventually.

Yeah. I won't tell her. Favorite time of the day.

Hop in.

How's this used truck working out for you?

Oh, it's actually really great. Except for that.

Oh, dude. Your vehicles are always messed up. Why aren't we taking my car? Now the food is gonna get cold. How long has this been happening?

Just a couple of weeks. It just comes loose. I just hop under and put it back on every once in a while.

Let's hop under and put it back on, let me go get my lunch. Dude. You want me to get underneath there?

No, I got it. It's just right...all I've got to do is just scoot under here and just got to clip back on, that's all. It's fine.

And you know what would be easier?

What?

A little less steak and cheese.

Oh, come on.

All right. So Jeff, now that we raised it up to your height and I have to stand on a stool, but I can get to it. This is the problem, dude. Your shifter cable, the head of it looks like so much oil through the years, it just disintegrated it. It's supposed to click right on, and the centerpiece is missing. So, let's...yeah, we'll have to order up a shifter cable and I can temporarily fix this maybe with some mechanic wire, but for now. Then I'll get the cable and we'll go from there.

Okay.

Awesome.

Yeah.

So the issue was pretty clear what was wrong, and let's recap about what you should do. If that happens to you, the shifter is free-flowing, it just back and forth, there's no tension to it, don't bother with going underneath the dash. Find the simplest way first. Come under the vehicle, find where it attaches to the transmission, and see if that cable is disconnected or if the cable is broken. First thing you wanna check for is this. Due to the actual oil that contaminates the plastic, it starts to break down. You can also have this attached. And you might have a break in the cable. This cable goes right through this bracket, goes up over the backside of the transmission, comes around right here, and then it comes out over here. There it is, right here. Goes up into the floorboard, goes right up to the shifter.

So, once the shifter cable comes up through the floorboard, it's actually in the driver side, you'll see it come up right here. It goes underneath this carpet, right this angle over here. And as you can tell, with age, there's a big indent right here, so the insulation gets won out, water, snow, however, wherever you live. But in the cold climates, I've noticed that where the cable comes in, the plastic sheeting breaks down, and then the cable gets rusted and breaks. So I've seen that also. So, if it's attached down there, you don't see any visual breaks on the outside, check under this carpet, you might find a break there. Comes up right out of the carpet up here, goes behind the steering shaft, and then it goes all the way up into the column and it attaches itself right up on top where that shifter is.

So, once you take the knee kick panel off under the steering column, this is what you're going to see. This is the shifter cable up located on the shifter linkage. So you just take a pair of needle-nose pliers or flat head screwdriver, pop that off, and then you follow it down. And right here, you have two butterfly clips. And, if you're capable, you can squeeze them together with a needle-nose, and then push the cable through. And then just follow it out, and it's gonna come out here underneath the carpet.

So once you've taken the new cable and brought it up through, just put it right through this bracket. Once those two butterfly clips have popped through, you can take this pin and just fork-like slide it through again so the plastic doesn't come undone. Then you have your banjo clip, just snap it on. Now, you put your kneepad kick panel thing back together. There's a little male clip, it's like an H or an H, I would say, get a flat head screwdriver, put it to the top, you're gonna have to pry that out, and then you can squeeze the butterfly clips. Take a pair of pliers or needle-nose pliers, squeeze those ears in, and then you're gonna work that way, right up. Then you're gonna follow it up over the transmission till it comes around and goes out of the frame. Put the new cable up through the housing, align that ear in, and work it forward till it clicks. Now we're gonna put the new, good banjo on the linkage till it pops on. Clip that retainer clip in, push it through till it comes out the other side. And now, we're gonna ready to connect our cable under the floorboard.

So now, you're going to take your cable, and it's a square, it's gonna slide right in. It's gonna take some effort because you get a squeeze and get it to adjust. And I'm gonna lock the lock in. And slide that over. I'm gonna put the clip that comes with the cable up into the floor where it holds it. And, all we're gonna do now is we'll open the vehicle and make sure it's adjusted properly, if it's not, then come back down here, just pull that slider out, pull the lock pin out and adjust it properly.

One other thing you can check for real quick before you go take any cable out or get underneath the vehicle, if it's not loose and it just won't leave park, see if you can have someone check your brake lights, if your brake lights work, then it goes into a deeper diagnostic. If your brake lights aren't working, it's as simple as the brake switch is not sending power to release that shifter. So it can be your brake switch or a bad fuse. So check them both out before you go changing the cable.

Well, hopefully, you enjoyed this video. I enjoyed making it. Simple, fast, easy solution to a bad shifter. If you're not a subscriber, please subscribe. If you liked the video, add a comment. If you don't, add a comment. Don't forget to ring that bell because it turns on all your notifications, so you won't miss a future video.

All right. It is reattached.