Ok, I'm not really sure where to start, but I would appreciate any help with the following:

Last March I left my top down over night by accident and the next morning it was pouring...

Ok, luckily I did one hell of a job drying the car out and 99% of everything has been fine since. However, I have been having problems with one thing.

The shift lever in my car must have acquired water in the mechanism that allows it to raise up and down when putting it into reverse. When I took my car to the shop to have my oil changed, I had them take a look at it--they lubed it up and put some de-locking stuff on it to free the parts. However, they told me that it would take some time for the parts to get better.

Well, four months later, the shifter never really got better. In fact, today I was driving my car and when I was trying to back out of a parking space, I noticed that the shifter is stuck in the reverse position (depressed). No matter how much pulling I put on the knob will free it at all.

I'm thinking about removing the console and relubing the shifter to see if it makes a difference. I have the service manual and it doesnt look too hard. Has anyone had experience doing this? Any pointers? Also, does anyone think that my efforts would be in vain? Any other solutions?

Thanks for everyone's help.

 

Pull the shifter out and Clean it very good with wd-40 or simple green. Also clean the bore where the end of the shifter sits. To remove the shifter, remove the knob, console, then the rubber boot is held on by a white plastic ring. This is a pain in the butt, there are four arrows, at the arrow there is a clip you will need to push on the side of the clip while pulling up, use a really small claw or screwdriver. Once the white ring is free pull the rubber boot up, then you will see A foam rubber seal between the steel and shifter pull this out, then there is a hard rubber cover you will need pull up to expose three 10mm head bolts, remove them and lift out the shifter. Take the spring out also and clean it. The shifter will only go back in one way because there is a tab on the driver's side. If you clean and lube it with white grease it will feel like new. Use lots of grease. It's actually easy to do this.

 

Thanks for the info--I haven't started on it yet, but I will over the next few days! I'll report back when I'm done.

 

The entire cavity that the shifter sits in is independent of the gear box. It's like a bowl, and can fill with water (which is hard to do, as it is well protected by another boot under the leather boot).

I would take some paper towel and dry out the bowl once the shifter is out.

The shifter also has two white plastic/nylon bushings, one big and one small. Run them under hot water for two minutes to avoid breaking them when removing them. Both bushings need a heavy grease, inside and outside.