Removing the Shift Linkage

Materials needed:

Philips screw driver
Flat head screw driver
Ratchet
Sockets – 10mm, 12mm, 14mm
Pliers
Jack
Jack stands
¼ inch ratchet and 10mm socket (optional)

Just FYI, give yourself a good amount of time to change your shift linkage. It’s not that hard, just requires a good amount of time and work.

First off, the center console needs to come out. Take off the shift knob by pulling down on the shift boot to dethatch it, and then unscrewing the shift knob. There are 4 screws on each side of the center console holding it in.


You will also need to pull off the little pieces of carpet at the very front of the center console (one is covering the OBDII port) and remove the screws behind them. These just kind of pull straight off. You may need to disconnect the coin pocket light on the underside of the center console.


Once the center console is off, you can take off the 4 12mm bolts holding the shifter assembly down.


You will then need to remove the shift linkage cables from the shifter assembly. The right cable is just held in by a clamp which I used pliers to remove. This bad boy may not want to come off, you might try using a small flathead as well. After you get the clamp off just pull the cable from the shifter assembly (to the right and back).


The left cable needs to be removed with a flathead screwdriver or pliers. There is a little flap of the yellow plastic holding this cable in. With the flathead or pliers pull back the flap that is holding the cable in and it pull right out (to the left). This is kind of hard to explain, but is easy once you figure it out. After that, you are done with the inside of the car.


Here is how they look without the shifter assembly.


And here they are from the engine bay (no engine obviously).


**If doing this while your engine/transmission are still in the car you need to take off two cotter pins using pliers to remove the cables from the transmission.**

There are two bolts underneath the car that require the exhaust and exhaust heat shield to be removed. You may only have to remove the middle portion of the exhaust with the resonator on it but I just pulled the whole thing in order to avoid those rusty exhaust bolts we all love.


Jack up the car and always used jack stands so that you can safely work under your car. Now you can remove whichever portion of the exhaust you see fit but you definitely need to remove the long center portion of it.


Once the exhaust is off, the middle heat shield has to come off. It is held up by 6 or so 10mm bolts. After you get the heat shield off, two 10mm bolts holding the shift linkage to the undercarriage of the car are exposed. Remove them.


Now there is only one more thing holding your shift linkage on, this piece:


This bracket is right underneath the firewall in the very center of the car (this view is from underneath the car). To remove these bolts I used a very small ¼ inch drive ratchet and a 10mm socket. If you do not have one of these you can get creative on getting the cables out from this bracket. You can cut the bracket if you want but you should be able to figure out a way to get to them with a ratchet.

After that bracket is out of the way, you can pull the shift linkage out. Go up under the car to pull the cables through the underside of the car. Once you get them through the floor you can pull them the rest of the way out of the engine bay.

And here she is:


To replace just follow these steps in the reverse order and you are good to go!