almost a scary moment

[Craig 94 TA GT]

I drove to an afternoon class today and everything felt normal...until I parked it. I put the shift lever in "P", and the T/A went into reverse I tried to put it in reverse, and it stayed in reverse. I tried neutral, and it went into drive. D was the same thing, and "3" was 2nd gear. I couldn't look under the car because it was raining so unbelievably hard, I wouldn't be able to see anything anyway. So, I just parked the car and left the handbrake on very high...and left it in "P"...I didn't even know what gear it was in anymore. Needless to say, I got it home in the garage, and took a look underneath. The bracket that holds the shifter linkage/cable was almost all the way off Two bolts hold it, one was gone, the other was half way unscrewed. I am still confused as to how it came "undone" and for this problem to show up. I guess the only explanation was that it was a bit undertorqued a long time ago, and eventually came out. I doubt anyone has had this experience before, but I thought I might as well post to see if anyone has.

[Z Ya Later]

Like I said, treat it like a stick lol. Were you able to find the right bolt to replace the one you lost?

[beachbum86]

I had that problem on my '86 a couple of times... It sucks! Everytime it happened I had to get under the car and put the linkage back on the shifter on the tranny and then put it in park. Very inconvenient. Never did get around to fixing it though Oh well....

[Rob B (shoebox)]

I have read posts of the bracket coming loose. Probably a good thing to check any time you are under the car. If the conical washers on the pan bolts get over-torqued, they kind of turn inside-out and won't hold tension.

[Craig 94 TA GT]

beachbum, why did it keep falling off/out? Did you have a problem with the bolts, or...?

Rob, thanks for the advice. I will get locking washers for the bolts I bought. The Helm says to tighten all bolts to 12 ft-lbs. Well, when I checked, they were all at 8-9 ft-lbs. Also, does a mere 12 ft-lbs include the bracket bolts? Is that even enough to hold it down for a few months?

[RocKin1967]

that happened to my friends 87 t.a he was doing a burnout then moved up some and put it in park, got out to look at the rubber on the street and we get back in the car 2 leave and went for "D" and it didnt move...everything went silent fearing the worst (tranny died) since we couldnt move it we had 2 jack the car up in the middle of the street and then we notice the bolts on the floor and saw where it came from, we put them back on got them as tight as we could and left. it happened 2 him like 2 more times after that.