Won't shift into 3, 4,5, or 6
 

Everything was working fine, I was parking my 04 S and all of a sudden the shifter will not move to the right. It will go into 1,2 and R, but not 3,4,5 or 6. It will not move to the right at all

I pulled the center console and the cables are both attached. The left cable will push, but not pull.

Checked under the car and both cables are attached.

Doesn't matter if the engine is running or not

It drives fine in 1, 2 and R.

Any ideas???

Hey Jay; I seem to remember a thread recently that had similar issues to yours. If I remember correctly they had a bent shift fork inside the case. I'll search in a few.

This is the recent thread. Different failure locked vs free but maybe helpful.

http://986forum.com/forums/performance-technical-chat/63050-seeking-gearbox-expert-advise-lost-5th-6th-gears.html

You must have a break in the cable.

Check where the 2 cables exit the outer sheath at the transmission. This part of the outer sheath should be securely attached to the transmission housing. The inner cables may be secure to the shift actuators but if the outer sheath is not the cables can't actually put enough pressure on the actuators.

Did a search before posting

from other threads, its looking like something broken in the tranny :(

Hoping its something else

Okay, try one more thing. Are you able to move the actuators on the transmission by hand? When I had my problem I was able to move both actuators at the trans which convinced me the issue was not internal to the trans but was cable related which lead me to finding the outer sheath not properly secured to the trans.

Good luck!

Ill get under there today.
I assume I will need to pop off the cable from the trans?
Any tricks to doing that?

I've had the sheath problem before causing the car to get stuck in third once and 5th once or twice.

It could be an easy fix!

Hope yours ends up being cables. I had a similar problem and it was internal. My indy rebuilt the tranny top to bottom. Not cheap by any means, but reasonable all things considered.


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I didn't disconnect the cables. I simply moved them by hand and the stick shift moved accordingly. Doing the movement allowed me to see that the sheath was not securely in place. You may have to remove a small heat shield that protects the shifter linkage from exhaust heat but that was simple using a long ratchet extension. I needed to do this to get my hands in to move the actuators.

Good news!

Its all working now
Not sure exactly what the problem was ????

The cable was a little loose in the bracket. I pushed it back in and still had the problem
Tried to remove the cable from the trans and the levey moved both directions, so T least I know it not an internal problem

I will order the retaining clips and cross my fingers that the problem is gone.

Only new bad news is I have a torn inner CV boot and I just had them repacked a month ago
Oh well 90 k on factory originals ain't so bad

Looks like I dodged another bullet

Thanks to all for their suggestions

Anyone know the part number for the clips?

Here is the section of the PET with the items in question.

PS, these guys sell some heftier clips for the cable ends as well.

http://www.tunersmotorsports.com

Well it happened again and it was slightly more complicated

Turns out it was not the cable slipping from the mount, but the metal "sleeve" that the wire runs through. It "broke loose" from the rubber boot and slid down. When you push the sifter to the right it retracts the wire. With the sleeve slid down, it prevented the wire from retracting as the sleeve hit the boot and would not move up.

Simple fix, slide the sleeve back up into the boot and used a small screw clamp around the bottom of the boot to keep it from sliding back down.

A hell of a lot less $$ than replacing the cable

Yep. That's the Achilles connector. I have tie wraps down there doing something.

Did anyone ever respond to this? I’m having this exact same issue on my 2001 Boxster S.

2 posts up:

I had good luck by adding a heavy duty zip tie as an extra insurance to the OEM Mickey Mouse clip

I did the same thing. $5.00 and about 45 minutes. Works great so far

Yep…
 

….Zip ties are awesome.

There are aftermarket security clips you can purchase for the cable ends where they connect to the shifter levers at the back of the tranny.


Install those, and also zip tie the cables to the friction holders just upstream from those.

The last thing that can cause this, is a plastic piece inside the shifter assembly in the center console. Search about that one as I can’t remember which piece it is.

If you address all three of these, and install the G-Box detent thingy, you will prevent 99% of gearbox issues with these machines.