Hello Everyone,

The manual gearbox is in an '05 Cavalier, ~150k km.
It is increasingly hart to shift into reverse, especially now, after a non-use for about a month.
I did oil the end of the shifter cables at the gearbox, as well as adjusted them as per the service manual.
I could not see any obvious oil leak from the gearbox, though the car is old enough and the underside of the drive-train is not spotless, like when it was new.
The shifting quality has been slowly deteriorating for a number of years...

When shifting, the spring in the gearbox does not take the shifter from the 1 - 2 plane to the 3 - 4 plane, one needs to move the shifter way over towards the 5th to engage the 3rd gear.
Engaging the 5th gear is sort of OK.
And now it is really hard to engage reverse.

Somehow I have the feeling that this is not the problem with the shifter cables, but internal to the gearbox.
Reading up on the F23 (briefly though) I could not find anything relating to this.

Any idea what is happening and what would be the best course of action?

Thanks, Peter

Like you attempt to shift into Reverse and . . .

A. . . . it grinds?
B. . . . the lever enters the gate and travels to the normal end of travel and Reverse is not engaged?
C. . . . the lever enters the gate and travels to the normal end of travel and Reverse is barely engaged?
D. . . . selects easily but letting out the clutch doesn't make it move?
E. . . . selects easily but letting out the clutch barely makes it move?
F. . . . does something not described in this multiple choice?

Hi GM nut,

Thanks for the help!

I had another look at the car, it is my wife'* daily driver.

Clutch is fine, no grinding of gears.
It looks that it is hard to push the shifter enough to the right so that the gear would go into reverse. (It looks that it is fine for the 5th gear!)
It also looks that the shifting difficulty is temperature sensitive, I could shift into reverse OK when the car is cold, OK when it is warm, my wife tells me that it is hard to engage reverse when the car is cold though it stood in the sunshine all day (it is hot these days here).
I will keep an eye on this.

Still, this tells me that the shifter cable could stand a bit of adjustment again, it does not seem to move the selector in the gearbox enough to the right when engaging reverse.
The spring moving the selectors to the 3 - 4 plane does not seem to be there any more, it is probably broken.
If I am correct, that spring is inside the gearbox.
Is there a detailed diagram of the insides of the gearbox? I would have to double check it in the service manual!

Thanks, Peter

I think you're on the right track with the cable adjustment.

I believe the service manual has a lot of detail of the transaxle, but if not enough then there is probably a good reference available online.

Hello Everyone,

Just an update on the gearbox shifting difficulties.
As it turns out the reason for the hard shifting is seizing of the bearing of the bell-crank lever on the gearbox.
The bell-crank changes the shift cable movement 90 degrees, and with the help of the pin on the bell-crank engaging the slot on the shift rod it moves the shift rod in and out.

The operation of the shift lever progressively got worse, recently I could barely get the gearbox into first gear or reverse.
The plane selection, moving the shift lever side to side was getting really hard.

The shift cable itself moved freely when the stick was wiggled, the bell-crank did not move.
From the picture it looks that the shaft of the bell-crank just sits in that two cast bearing appendages and rotates in there.
There does not seem to be any protection of the bearing from the elements, and living in the rust-belt and using the car for commuting to work every day in the last 16 years resulted in this.
Access is really limited to this part of the gearbox, even that my car does not have ABS.
I had to remove the aftermarket cruise control that sat on that "shelf" that holds the ABS or the proportioning valve in my case.
I sprayed that bearing with WD40 and now the shifter moves better. Based on past experience I do not expect the WD40 to help for long.

It looks like that the bell-crank is lid into that bearing and there is a C-clip at the bottom of the shaft preventing it come out.
Ultimately one would want to remove that bell-crank, clean it, lubricate it, and reassemble it.
I just do not see any ways of getting that C-clip off, or if it is manageable, probably no way to get it back with the gearbox in the car.

I will see if I can get some oil in there to that bearing, though access is really limited.
Any other ideas how to proceed?

But at least now I know what is the source of the problem!

Thanks, Peter

If I'm understanding the picture correctly, it looks like it'* just a bushing and not a bearing. If you get it lubed up well it will probably last a while.

You are correct. That type of bearing is also called a journal bearing.
It is also not clear from the picture if it has a brass bushing or not.
Hopefully I can get to it and put some oil on it.

Peter

Started a new thread at: https://www.gmforum.com/saturn-204/m...ushing-313703/

. . . for a question posed by jonny_d related to this thread, and referenced this thread in the new thread.