2001 Elantra Gear Shift Moves Hard
 

Took my wifes Honda on Wedn, noticed the shifter moved hard. She tried to drive it the next, but could not move the shifter. I could move it but almost broke the lever doing it. Code read P0705. Put a new tranmission range sensor in, made no difference. Transmission itself shifts just fine on the road. When I unhooked the linkage to the sensor the shifter moves easily. You can not move the lever on the sensor by hand, it's very stiff. Doesn't seem like it should move that hard.

Car goes into all drives and reverse. Will go into Park but very hard to do so.

I'm out of ideas. Anybody seen this one?

Ken

Sounds like the selector shaft is seizing to the bore in the trans case.. not a good thing.

Try taking the range/inhibitor switch off, and using some PB Blaster around the shaft, and leave it soak for the weekend.. occassionally take and tap the top of the shaft with a hard plastic hammer (go to LOWES and see if you can find an 8x1.25 nut with a top on it so you do not damage threads on shaft like you would with plain nut open at top).. hopefully some mild ratlle and working will loosen it up, otherwise it is hope for best removing the side pan and valve body, and getting shaft out so you can polish it.

Used to have Kia Sephia select shaft freeze up, put new trans in, let contractor worry about the shaft at the authorized re-man facility.

That sounds reasonable given the symptoms. You wouldn't think a shaft would sieze in a car that gets used almost every day. I'm going to give it a try this weekend. What is PB Blaster? Is that like WD-40? Better?

Ken

Update on Dragging Shifter Elantra 2001
 

UPDATE:

Thanks to SBR I think I have avoided an expensive repair. Shaft was sticking. Sprayed WD-40 on it all day Saturday, tapped it lightly with a brass drift (couldn't find right size nut) and worked it back and forth. Did this every couple of hours and could feel it going easier each time. Had some trouble with alignment. Did it a couple of times according to the book and couldn't get it into park. Manually put lever into park, then with shifter in park attached the cable. Everything works good and cel went out. Wondering if cable has some stretch in it. Would it be worth replacing?

Thanks again for the help. Big relief. You can't seem to go to a garage nowadays without dropping 1-3 grand. I needed a break.

Ken

Typical is to put trans in neutral..... look at the steel arm, there is a 5mm hole at end of the stel stamped arm... loosen the shift cable nut to allow lever to set proper.

Look at the inhibitor switch there,, and use a long 5mm bolt as align tool.

The bolt should pass through the arm and hole in the switch (loosen the 2 bolts and rotate switch if needed so bolt drop through both hole, tighted bolts.

After you align lever and inhibitor switch, then re-secure the cable end to the lever.

That's how the Hyundai TBS said to do it. And I did it that way a couple of times with no luck. Do you think the linkage at the shifter might be bent? If it were, the handle would butt up against the cover before the cable could push the lever all the way over to park.

Probably bent metal rod on actual shifter forcing into park. Common problem.