I had the Civic parked on a steep hill, facing upwards to do a coolant flush. (Hill aids air bubbles coming to the top of the radiator on fillup.)

The rear brakes need adjusted, so the e-brake didn't hold the car right, and I can't quite run the car while it's in gear. So I have a friend get in and hold the brake. He stalls the car.

I said WTF, is it in neutral? He says yeah. On closer inspection, no it's not, the shifter moves left and right while in gear. It moves much more when in Neutral... But it's enough to confuse people, and it's caused me to hit the gates and miss shifts. In gear, it moves as much as my RX-7 tranny with short shifter in neutral.

I figured it was bushings between the shifter and the linkage rod rod to the transmission or bushings between the rod and the control yoke that leads into the tranny. No such luck. The entire control yoke is able to move left and right while in gear.

Is this a common problem and is it correctable? Even the cable shifted '85 wagon didn't have this much play in the shift linkage.

1993 Civic LX Sedan. D15B7 (1.5L SOHC, 16 Valve) Manual, 220K miles on the clock, original engine and drivetrain.

 

I had a car in the shop the other day, that a extremly sloppy shifter. Every bushing was fine, joints were tight, everything looked great. I was getting ready to pull it off the car, to swap in another set. When I pulled the rubber boot off from around the rolled pin, I noticed the pin was halfway out. I punched it out the rest of the way, put in a new one (the old one was thrashed) and the slop was gone.

So, maybe take a look at the pin.

 

You talking about the rubber boot where the rod connects to the transmission itself?

I'll pull that off and check... It appears as though the slop is inside the tranny...

Bump for more opinions.

 

Bump