Hey guys, my shifter was stuck in the down positiion for the longest time. I finally managed to spend 2 hours in the garage to fix it. The problem originated from a bad spring. When i took out the three screws, the shifter would not come out. I had to pull on it extremely hard. When it finally came out, i noticed that there was some kind of liquid in the hole. At first, i thought it was grease or something, but i'm starting to think more and more that its water. Should there be any liquid in there (under the shifter, where the spring usually goes). I'm planning on sucking out the liquid but i want to make sure that its not essential for the shifter.

Another problem i had was that when i put the shifter back on, it was extremely loose. The spring worked well, but the shifter could be moved when it was in the gears. For example, i would put it into 1st, and i could still move it around as if it wasn't attached to anything. I think that i may have detached something when i pulled hard on it. The odd thing is that when i push the shifter down into its reverse position, the problem is no longer there.

I think that i did something to the shifter. I decided to get a short shifter to fix this problem (i wanted one for a long time, and i figured it was the right time to do it).

So guys, do you think that i should suck out that liquid? Or is that stuff normal?

Also, what type of grease do you use on the spring (it says to apply grease or oil in the repair manual). Where do you get it?

Let me know please,

Dave

 

ya they have a tsb for water rusting out parts inside the shifter.

 

so should i remove the water or not?

 

Yes, the water has no purpose of being in there.

 

The water should not be in there--wick it out with a towel or something. I had a similar incident happen where my shifter rusted. But the water source was obvious since I had accidentally left my top down during a nice long rain overnight. Probably one of my dumbest moments ever.

Basically I removed the shifter and cleaned off all the rust on the spring and shifter and removed all the water. The I used some type of lithium grease used for lubricating that sort of thing and put it back in. It completely eliminated my problem.

As far as yours goes, I didnt have any issues with my shifter after I finally got it put back. Getting the stupid thing back in took me at least 30 min!