Hi guys,

Driving home last night, not doing anything unusual, changed gears as per normal - and the gear stick suddenly has a lot more sideways movement than it did. I can still select gears ok, forwards and backwards movement is fine, just really 'sloppy' side to side movement.

Does anyone have any ideas what might have caused this please? I'm assuming there is a plastic bush or something in there that might have succumbed to wear and tear but any advice before I start pulling it apart would be great, thanks.

Cheers,

Wrxpc.

Could be a shifter bush and/or shifter knuckle spring has broken


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Shifter bushes, one near the gear stick which you can change internally by taking the console etc off, the front one/s ( there are two, luckily the non replaceable one in mine was ok) are a bit of a pig, has a weird twin pin which you can't get to without dropping the back of the box, did mine a couple of weeks ago, hoist is the way to go for the front one, mine went really quickly too. Kits available from Subaru but you are better off getting under the car and seeing if the very front one is fucked as you can't replace it, you need to replace the entire knuckle. Easy to check, just put the car up on ramps or stands and you'll feel/see any slop by moving the levers around, better with someone in the car to move the stick around.

__________________
Beaten up old 98 Gen 2 Liberty, 13.0, stock V3 STI running gear.
07 Transit motor home
69 VF & 70 VG Valiants needing full restoration
Yamaha Zooma 50cc rocket hopefully going with the Transit.

Thanks guys, looks like it's console out and/or up on ramps tomorrow for a look. Still ok to drive like this I guess? I won't make it worse? My daily isn't air conditioned and it would suck to have to drive around in this weather without it.

Cheers,

Wrxpc

Nah, can't get much worse, they are just bits of thin plastic tube over a shaft so you can only lose so much control of the lever, mine is a STI short shifter and 1st & 2nd were about 2 inches further over to the left, real pig trying to do a fast downshift, usually hit 4th instead of 2nd.

__________________
Beaten up old 98 Gen 2 Liberty, 13.0, stock V3 STI running gear.
07 Transit motor home
69 VF & 70 VG Valiants needing full restoration
Yamaha Zooma 50cc rocket hopefully going with the Transit.