Driving home from work tonite,all of a sudden a shifter got very loose.It doesn't return to center very quickly.I plan on taking the console off to take a look.Any ideas of what to look for or is this a phantom problem that'll come around again to bother me?Anyone ever have this happen before.
Oh,it is a manual.

 

the first thing i would check are the bushings in the shift linkage underneath the car, you should probly hope thats whats wrong otherwise you could have some internal damage with the syncros, does your transmission make a sort of humming noise when you are just sitting in nutueral with the clutch out, it may make a little noise thats normal but if you can hear it over the engine idling then there could be some bad bearings in your transmission. I had this problem and i ended up rebuilding my tranny but i dont remember any slop in the shifter.

 

No noise from the tranny.In the past it has been loose not real sloopy but pretty darn loose.Later it would be back to normal,I hope this isn't something major.I'll find out later in the morning won't I?

 

check the shifter mount under the shift boot

you check this from inside the car just pop up the trim/boot and pull the rubber accordian part out of the way and there is a rubber mount in front of the shifter with a bolt throught it that holds your shifter in place and ive seen alot of them break i think thats the rea a few 5spd were in the junk yard because it felt like the trans went out but really the trans was fine and it was the 40$ mount

 

There is a little spring that the haynes manual calls the "return spring".. i think its suppose to return the shifter to the center, hence the name. You should check that, but i think you'll have to look for it from under the car.. Its at the base of the shifter from under the car. Mine fell out a few weeks ago when i took off the tranny and i havent had a chance to put it back in... My shifter is really loose when you move it towards the left (towards 1st) and doesnt really return, but when i move it to the right its fine. Is yours anything like this?

 

Thats exactly what it does.I haven't had a chance to look yet.I've been to busy with work.It's pretty funny how nothing goes wrong with a car until you don't have time to check it out or fix it.

 

That little spring has been laying in my glove box for about the last month or two. Im always either too lazy or too busy to fix it. I think i might finally do it today or tommorow. I'll tell you how it goes if i get around to it... Or you could do it first...