My 88 LX shift lever drops through the floor

[Wesley]

Does anyone know why a shift lever would drop? It seems my stabilizer bar is not supported and the boot and the whole connection can be pushed down. It's easy to pull it back up but I have to remember not to put any downward pressure when changin gears. My wife hates this and will not drive the car.
Wesley in Massachusetts

[stevewl1164]

Don't know why..but it would be a sight to see! Reminds me of Barney Fife's first car where the steering wheel comes out like a snake!

[hofficergrover]

it would be that there are rubber stops on each side of the shifter that hold it in place and the rubbers are no good so you my have make a bracket under it to hold it or weld the plates where the rubber goes to the car to hold it very pain in the but to fix

[batstiva]

Does anyone know why a shift lever would drop? It seems my stabilizer bar is not supported and the boot and the whole connection can be pushed down. It's easy to pull it back up but I have to remember not to put any downward pressure when changin gears. My wife hates this and will not drive the car.
Wesley in Massachusetts

Batstiva did that towards the end. I ended up buying a kit from Chris Rummel. (Rumnhammer) I think it was about 20 or 30 bucks, took maybe 1/2 hour to put in. There are other fixes as well. Everything else I thought about just seemed temp. His thing seemed more permanent. Not sure if he even still has any of them. That was a few years ago.

Found an old post of his. Price in 05 was 25.00 shipped.

[festivaWES]

Hi Wesley, welcome to the boards! I'm Wesley too!! There is a post on here somewhere relayed from club protege.com Apparently proteges/escorts have the same problem. Basically you can bolt in the inner cylinder part to the outside mount base...then clean it off and use some window wled or something to bond it back into place.

I'll try and find that thread, welcome to the boards BTW :wave:

[festivaWES]

Buy another one, or try one of these methods. I'd perfer the no-weld type myself, just re-glue it with eurathane after bolting it.

no weld method




http://www.clubprotege.com/forum/sho...ht=shifter+fix

[Studebaker]

How much does the shifter body move from front to back? I was thinking of stuffing the space with expanding foam. Or sticking some straws in part of the space. Then filling the rest with foam, to give it a little play.

[festivaWES]

I wouldn't use either on of those two items....the exhaust gets hot its right underneath there. Put some erathane in there.

[Wesley]

I like the suggestions, especially the pictures of the stabilizer bar and methods of keeping it up in place. I have tried jacking the lever up so the rubber wedges on the boot might be pushed up farther and click into place. So far, the shifter feels more solid, but I have not tried putting a lot of downward pressure on it. Maybe that did it. Maybe not. We'll see.
Thanks gang for everthing.
Wesley in Mass.

[festivaWES]

The rubber is supposed to be bonded on both sides. It has perated over time, pulling it up won't fix the problem.

[Studebaker]

I took some high quality two part glue and glued them back in place. Will let everyone know if it does not last.

David