Patrick Brown

I just recently bought a 79 and up until recently trying to shift from 2nd gear to neutral has become difficult to where I feel like I'm gonna break something down shifting from park to 1st gear no problem the problems start only in 2nd gear and it makes what sounds like a hollow sound right when it's gets into gear. Keep in mind I'm doing this while the car is off what could this be and what could I be in for. Thanks fellas.

kalanikaau

Hopefully I am interpreting your post correctly, the problem you are having involves shifting into second from all other gears? What do you mean by a "hollow" sound? You hear this sound with the engine not running? The logical thing to do is to determine if your problem is the shifter/shift cable itself or internally within the transmission.
Disconnect the cable at the transmission and duplicate the issue, if the problem persists then the fault is with the shifter, the cable or both. If shifter movement is free and normal, you've got internal transmission problems.
Not that it matters, but is your '79 a 1200 or CVCC model ?, Honda did offer Hondamatics in both Civic models, I once owned a '79 Civic 1200 with a Hondamatic, it's 2 forward speeds were "slow and slower"