loflite

My car does not shift into reverse freely and will not let the ignition go into locked position. So I did some checking and I see the lock out cable down by the shift linkage is kinking before it goes into the housing rather than pushing through and moving the lever on the steering column. Can this be fixed somehow or should I be getting a new cable? When I disconnect the cable from the steering column lever, both the cable and the lever move freely, but when the linkage pushes on the cable, it tends to kink and not go into the housing. That cable must be pretty stiff from the factory to be pushing on a lever.

TOM B1

The inside of the cable is probably getting rusty or clogged with dirt.
You can force some WD40 down the cable and try to get it to move free or forget the hassle and replace it so you can enjoy your drive.

CanadaGrant

Once the cable has kinked you can straighten it but it always wants to do it again in the same place and you want it perfectly straight to prevent binding. A new cable is about 40 bucks so it's up to you if you want to remove it, soak and lube it and try and straighten it out or just put a new one in and be done with it.

loflite

Thanks for the input. I did some searching on the forum about this and it sounds familiar. Will order new cable in the AM. Thanks again.

The13Bats

Anyone have a diagram of this set up they can post?
Thanks
B

jim2527

I had the exact same problem.

I attributed it it to poor build quality of the cable. When sliding by hand I can feel individual cable stands rubbing against the outer housing, it's not very smooth at all.

These cables are probably one of the items that are made by one company and sold by all the vendors. If one vendor has shitty cables they all do.

Alan 71

Hi lof,
There's an additional small bracket on the the transmission that helps hold the cable in alignment…is it there?
Might help?
Regards,
Alan





It's under one of the upper side cover bolts.

loflite

Yes, thanks Alan, it's there. I did not tell the whole story. Earlier this spring I had dropped the steering column down to fix vacuum leaks and replace my tach. After I dropped the column, I tried to shift into reverse and that's when I think I kinked the cable. Thanks, got a new cable ordered and hopefully it'll be a done deal. After all the work I put into this car, it will be nice to drive a functioning (for now) big block '69 this summer.

Alan 71

Hi Lo,
There have been several post recently about 'kinked' cables.
Did your kink at the steering column or transmission end?
Also, there's a rubber boot at the transmission end of the sheath to help protect the cable. Sometimes this is gone or the cable has been reversed so the boot's up at the column. Was yours in the right place?
Without the boot in place the cable's pretty susceptible to becoming difficult to move.
Regards,
Alan

loflite

My kink was down on the transmission end. The rubber boot was down there too. All worked well until I lowered the steering column to remove the dash panel and then tried to force the tranny into reverse.

Alan 71

Hi Lo,
Well, at least you'll know to not do that the NEXT time!
Regards,
Alan

loflite

Alan, do you have any suggestions on installing the new cable? Should I start at the transmission side or on top? thanks,

theandies

I started at the transmission but I did it that way because I had the engine/transmission out of the car at the time and thought it was easier to work at the transmission on the ground. If I had to do it with everything in the car I'd probably start at the transmission to. You'll see that cable is very stiff and doesn't like to bend very much so I think starting at the transmission would be better.

Alan 71

Hi lof,
I don't think it really matters which end is installed first.
As ta said the cable is quite stiff but it is flexible enough to make the installation quite easy.
Regards,
Alan

Here you can see the gentle curve in the cable that forms when the cable is installed.