chawski

I saw this was a fairly common problem people were having while i was searching for my problem, so figured I would post a quick band-aid fix to this problem.

I was having a problem getting the gear selector into specific gears over the past several months. Started only having the problem going from 2 -> 3, then became a problem for almost all gears. I would have to go from 2 -> neutral -> 3, and so on for the selector to allow me to get into gear. searched a lot of forums and found people talking about everything from the tranny being shot, to im shifting wrong, etc.

I started to notice it was more of a problem in high humidity, so figured it might be just something catching so I pulled the console and started taking a peek. unfortunately, didnt take any pics, but it was an obvious problem.

At the bottom of the gear selector is a white plastic ball that moves around in a cup. As I moved through the gears, I saw the ball was actually opening up and spreading as I moved the stick, causing it to stick. If i moved between gears but went side to side in neutral before going into the next gear, the ball "closed" and easily allowed me into gear. Not sure if changing this plastic ball is a user serviceable item or just if the whole shifter assembly needs to be replaced, but I found that some graphite lube around the ball worked wonders. I put a ton around the entire ball and moved it around, as well as put some into the cables attached to the stick.

Its been about 2 weeks since I did this and have not had the problem since. Hope this helps someone else in the same boat I was in.