Shift column very loose

[EldoradoRedd1]

My '80 Eldorado's gear column is very loose.When shifting from park to drive i notice a lot of play,The shift should b tight.
Any way to adjust this?Or will i have to replace parts? Any advice is appreciated

[Rick Biarritz]

Do you have to fish around for the gears?  I have an 83 Eldo, and I have the same problem.  Let's see what the guys have to say. 

[Dave Shepherd]

Usually there is play or wear in the bushings in the lever at the bottom of the column and/or at the trans shift lever.  Also look for looseness in the shift lever pin at the column itself.

[Guidematic]

 I'll bet that it's the shift linkage bushing on the frame. Where the cross rod goes to the transmission, there is a half spherical bushing that fits into a bowl on the frame. It's held tight by spring tension. That spring may break, the bushing may wear or break, or it can just seize on the rod.

It's a common problem on all these cars.

Mike

[TJ Hopland]

The earlier body style for sure had a problem with the linkage.   Since your style is similar just scaled down a bit it would not surprise me if the used the same part.    There is basically a crank on the frame just in front of the firewall.   Its a bracket with a shaft and the shaft has 2 arms on it.  One arm goes to the vertical rod from the steering column and the other arm goes to the horizontal rod that connects to the transmission.  The bracket is sort of a C shape that supports the shaft on both ends.  On the earlier body style they seemed to use different materials over the years. Some had a bushing and some did not.  It did not seem to make much difference as far as wear, I have seen both worn on low miles cars.   One end always wears and lets the crank flop around so it takes extra motion on the lever to get everything moving.  What you usually notice on the older style is you dont get it locked in park.  It pulls it out of gear but does not lock it.    On my cars and a few others I have installed a bushing to solve the issue.   I got the bushing in a universal door hinge repair kit from a parts store.   It took some custom work with a dremel type tool to get it all to fit but it seems to holding up.  A couple of the ones I did like that have been going for 5 years now.  Its nice when that is tight because you can get the indicator aligned and the P/N switch and parking brake release all working like it should.   Again this is all based on the 71-78 body style.  I dont recall what it looks like on the 79-85's.   

[Guidematic]

It's similar on the '79-'85.

Mike

[Guidematic]

Scanned the page from the manual. I forgot that there is also a bracket with a bushing mounted on the left side of the engine.



Mike

[TJ Hopland]

That is different than the 71-78 design but still looks like some wear in any of those joints would end up with the same problem. 

My guess is if you often parked on an incline the extra force required to get it out of park is what wore the parts.  That could be why some people never had a problem.   Maybe it was just worse on the Eldos because of the odd angles to go forward to the trans instead of back like on the rest of the cars?

[EldoradoRedd1]

This info was a lot of help. I also hav the repeair manual here i'll read up onit