I was starting to have some shifter issues, specifically, selecting the correct drive gear became difficult. Additionally, the indicator light was showing the wrong gear.
Here’s a video of the problem.
After some research I decided to check out the bushings, which can be done without having to get under the car, which is becoming more and more difficult as I get older…
As can be seen above, first I remove the bezel, then the plate and finally remove the bolts holding the gear selector bucket to the tunnel. This is when I found out that only two factory bolts were in place at the bottom. A previous owner had obviously had some issue and had fixed the top of the bucket to the tunnel with sheet metal screws!
The last wo pictures above show that there is no bushing remaining at all for shift linkage, which I suspect is most of the issue.
