tide55

There is something wrong with shifting in my car. One day a year or so ago I put my car from drive to 2. I wasn't able to get it to 2 without forcing it, and since then I haven't been able to shift easily. Before then I had no problems shifting, it was easy and smooth. I think maybe I knocked something out of line but I'm not sure what. This sounds stupid but I've been hoping whatever it was would fall back in alignment.

The problem has gotten worse recently. Sometimes I put the car in drive and it doesn't actually go in drive. I have to temporarily put a little pressure down on it to actually "seat" it in D. Again this is because the shift is so hard to move. Also now sometimes I put it in park and I can't take the key out right away. It took me forever to figure out that I had to put a little more pressure forward on the shift P for it to actually lock in place and let me take me keys.

I'm a DIYer, shadetree.... if you didn't know. So any advice for me? Is this something I can do myself? I removed the cover surrounding the shift but I didn't see anything serviceable. Thanks

ezone

I think you will have to do a little work to figure it out. Jack up the front end.

Remove the shift cable cover from the bottom of the trans, disconnect the shift cable from the shift selector shaft. Make sure the selector shaft in the trans moves through its full range and the cable links move freely. I have seen this stuff corrode and bind up on some Hondas.

Leave that stuff disconnected.

Go back inside and see if the shifter is still hard to move.

Now you'd have to pull up the entire center console to access the shifter and cable.

Disconnect the cable from the shifter.
See if the shifter moves freely now.
If the shifter moves free now, you need a cable.
If the shifter is still stiff, someone probably spilled a drink in it and the syrup is making it stiff to move. I pull the assembly off the floor, partially disassemble it, remove all the electrical stuff, and wash with hot soapy water. Soak, rinse, make sure it all works. Blow dry with compressed air. Relube anything that used to be greased before washing it.

Usually it's a bad cable, but I have seen all of these happen.

HTH

johndeerebones

What he says, except the spilled drink is the most common. Sodas and cappucinos get sticky when they dry. Bought my car off my sister and the seat belt doesn't want to click everytime due to the same thing. Can't access it to clean it out, but a squirt or two of some cleaner now and again frees it for a while....

tide55

Thanks for your suggestions. Do you know of any good pictures that illustrate what you are talking about?

I have homemade ramps from scrap wood that I drive my cars on to change their oil. Do you think that will be high enough to get to what you are talking about under the car with the cable cover? The ramps are 6" high. Here is a picture of the ramps when I was changing the oil in my passat:

ezone

You just need it high enough to work under it. Block the rear wheels so it can't possibly roll.

Google has plenty on manual trans, but there isn't much for automatics.
This ebay sale has the cable, you can see one end has a piece of linkage. The pivot there can bind. http://www.ebay.com/itm/01-02-03-04-...209235&vxp=mtr

That pivot link is attached to the trans with a single 10mm bolt, and it has lock tab you have to bend out of the way to remove it.


The other end at the shifter has an eyelet for a nut and bolt.




Cable at the trans, I know it's not yours but it should be somewhat similar


Exploded view of a shifter for a hybrid


Most of this is self explanatory once you start taking stuff apart, but I think you would be better off getting a regular shop manual for the car.

tide55

Thanks guys I really appreciate it. Too bad this forum doesn't have rep points. If I decide to actually take off the cover and do it I'll take pictures and update the thread. For now I'm going to hold off, at least until the weather is nicer.

tide55

Ignore this post it somehow became corrupted when I edited it and it won't let me change it back. Next post has full info on my shifter cable replacement.

tide55

This is also a corrupted post I can't edit properly, see next post.

tide55

I replaced my shifter cable finally. It took me several hours over three days. I found that it has a cost estimate of 1.5 hours if done by a professional. I know I'm not a professional but it took me a really long time compared to that.

Well here's my story and some pics to help anyone else.
Most of my directions came from PDF files I downloaded from a repair website. You can download them from my dropbox. They seem to only be legible in Adobe Reader. In my browser's PDF viewer they are blurry.
AT Shift Cable Replacement (2004 Honda Civic EX)
AT Shift Cable Adjustment (2004 Honda Civic EX)
ATF Level Check (2004 Honda Civic EX)

Also I found a guy on YouTube who did a short video series on replacing the AT shift cable on a 2003 Civic EX. The format is kind of difficult to get through, since it's so many short videos and you have to find one after the other. It was good to watch though.

So first I put the Civic up on homemade ramps. I made them from some 2x10 scrap and they work pretty well. You can see a picture of them earlier in the thread. I have to be really careful I don't overaccelerate when I'm going up the ramp or the wheels could just go over the edge (mine don't have a stop on the end).

Once I got under the car I found that there is very little room to get at the cable as it exits under the vehicle since the catalytic converter and the heat guard above it are in the way. My car used to have a heat shield as well on the catalytic converter but it rusted off. And speaking of rust as I was working on the shifter cable in that area a lot of small rusty shards came off the converter piece where it ties into the pipe. I strongly recommend safety glasses or that stuff could get in your eyes and probably blind you or something.

Below is a picture of the catalytic converter with some annotations. The muffler pipe really got in my way while I was working. Definitely wait until the car hasn't been driven for a while or you could really burn yourself.


I removed the heat shield to get at the shifter cable mount. I tried to remove the shifter cable mount but the bolts were really rusted on. I couldn't get a metric 10 combination wrench on them. I ended up using a small vise grip. The first bolt I sheared off. The second bolt I put in more of an effort. I scraped off the rust and sprayed WD40 on the area. Then a minute later I latched on and started turning really slow as perpendicular and proper as possible. Luckily after a lot of time (it was over an hour... maybe two to be honest) turning slowly a dozen degrees at a time I was able to remove the second nut with the bolt intact.

Below is a picture from when I was removing the shifter cable mount. I had to remove the two bolts and pry off that rubber boot.


Next I started removing the part of the cable inside the car. I was able to disconnect the shifter cable from the inside shifter mount but I had a lot of trouble initially because I couldn't rotate the cable's socket holder. It was in there pretty tight. I ended up using extra long needle nose pliers with a 45 degree offset to rotate the socket holder on the shift cable counterclockwise until I heard the pop and it basically "unlocked" so I could slide it out.

Also it helps to press down on the white tab near the shifter stick which unlocks it so it can move out of the way and you can get to the socket holder easier. Of course if you do that while the cable is still connected you will change gear.

Below is a picture of my pliers working the socket holder counterclockwise:


I do not have any pictures from when I removed the shift cable covers under the car. I was not able to use my socket on at least one bolt from what I remember. There's simply no clearance with the muffler pipe. I was able to use a 10mm combination wrench though and that worked. (Side note for reinstall: The one problem is torque specs for tightening, I couldn't really use a torque wrench on the bolts securing these covers --they're supposed to be tightened to 7 lb-ft-- so I just did them tight when I reinstalled.)

With all that done I was able to remove the cable from the car. Although I took the mount piece off since I was planning on reusing it (maybe since it was so rusty I should have bought a new one) I also undid the bolt and holder that held the mount to the cable, as seen in the next picture. I had to take that rusty piece, secure it in a vise and slowly pry it open to get the old cable out. Then I put the new cable in and tightened it back up with the vise so that the cable moved slightly in the holder but not past those metal rings.

Below is a picture of the piece I'm talking about. This isn't relevant if you buy a new mount piece, you could just discard this.


Below is a picture of the hinge on the old cable. It was completely frozen and couldn't move. The new cable of course has a hinge that is freely moving.


To put on the new cable I pretty much did the reverse of how I removed the old one. I did use a new nut to secure the old rusty mount back on to the rusty bolt. Again I went real slow but it was turning much easier, probably because of the new nut. I had two problems, first is that rubber boot. That was such a pain in the *** to get back on. I spent hours on it. Maybe you find that hilarious if you're in the auto biz but really I cut myself multiple times and I was never able to get a proper seal all the way around until somehow I got lucky putting a lot of force in the center and it went in. I was using so much force I was flexing the metal panel that I was trying to secure to.

Below is a picture of the new rubber boot. I tried using a screwdriver at one point early on to try to push it on (big mistake) and I punched right through it.


I don't have any pictures connecting the hinge under the car. I messed up initially because I forgot to put the socket holder (the shifter stick one, not the one near the hinge) back in (slide it in then turn clockwise until it stops). Of course to do that I had to twist the cable without damaging it so the hinge and socket holder under the car had to be disconnected and I turned the shifter stick socket holder for the shifter piece into it slowly to make sure I wasn't damaging anything.

Then I went under the car and reconnected the socket and hinge. There's a lock nut connecting the hinge to the transmission, and you bend a tab on it up after tightening the bolt (I guess so it can't become undone). Well mine was really rusted and hardly usable so if you are doing this job you might consider buying one of those as well. They're probably only $1 or $2.

So then I went back inside the car and at this point the cable is properly in but not yet connected to the shifter stick. I followed the adjustment in the adjustment guide. The important thing is when you pull on the cable that it moves freely back and forth. It should move in your hand with hardly any effort at all, and you'll be able to see on the dashboard the gear the car is in.

Below is a picture of neutral calibration with some annotations. After getting the cable in neutral I followed the neutral calibration of the shifter cable to the shifter stick (see pdf document). I used a drill bit because it was the closest thing I had to a 6mm pin. It was either a 1/8 or 1/4 drill bit I don't really remember.


The next step was really close to the final step before reassembling the shifter stick, and basically all I had to do after calibrating was properly attach the shifter cable to the shifter stick using the nut. I totally messed this up. The torque specification is 16 lb-ft, and when I tightened to that I bent the cable.

Below is a picture of the damage I did to the end of the cable trying to tighten the nut to 16 lb-ft. As I was getting close to 16 lb-ft the end piece of the cable looked like it was moving a little but I didn't realize what was happening until after I heard the click-stop of the torque wrench. I undid the nut and took a picture then retightened. I don't have any good advice for how to work around this. Don't bend your cable obviously. Mine was aftermarket so maybe that's why? Or maybe not, don't know.


Anyway the cable still seems to be properly calibrated and is working fine, totally smooth. It's such a major change I'm having trouble getting used to it!

Also I adjusted the transmission fluid to the right level. From past checks I knew there was too much fluid so I drained about a quart before taking the civic off the ramps and putting it on level ground to do an ATF level check. I ended up adding about half a quart of new Honda ATF fluid to get to the right level.

The part number I used for the shifter cable was 54315-S5D-A85. What was confusing about finding the right cable is for the 2004 Civic EX there are two cables shown on a lot of parts sites. One cable has the hinge and one doesn't. Here's an example. Could the one without the hinge be for CVT transmission? I'm not sure. I got my cable on eBay for $50 from autopartdepotnow.

HondaCivicSucks

YOUR TRANSMISSION SHIFTS HARD BECAUSE YOUR A BITc# GET A MANUAL CAR YOU *****=!E

ezone

What about his "a bitch"?










No child left behind.

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

now he's trying to understand what a transmission actually is. sha-meful.. hope he PM's civicnoobie. maybe he will get noobie's "waaaah! my trans is an auto! it will break!" crazyness.

HondaCivicSucks

dont be ridiculous i love transmissions ..ive owned so many wonderful cars with different transmissions in them...swapping out weak transmissions with more powerful versions...all manual no auto...dont care who thinks it is better i am right. so there

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

?!?
wut?!?
bwahahahahaha!!
whatever you say

HondaCivicSucks

its true

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

?!? do you even know why i am laughing?!? "More powerful transmissions"?!? Bwaaaaahahahahaha!

ezone

david5300

:cel: