The title pretty much says it - driving our 5-speed Mazda 5 yesterday, the shifting was smooth and wonderful as always, until it wasn't. The shift lever suddenly went floppy. We were able to coast off onto a side street in a seedy part of town. My wife phoned CAA for a tow, and then set off on foot to visit her mother. I put the hood up and had the emergency flashers on. The tow truck arrived within an hour, but in the interim I was proximate to group of disadvantaged people who were hanging around. They mostly ignored me, other than asking for cigarettes and money. I gave $10 (the only cash I had) to one person who really did seem desperate for a meal. I kept fiddling with the shifter, which was a mistake. At some point, the tranny shifted into reverse and locked there. The tow operator had to put "skates" (plastic wedges) under the front wheels to drag the car up onto the deck of the truck.
It gets better - due to a requirement for social distancing, the driver was not allowed to give me a ride home.
But wait, there's more ... our street is closed for construction, so the driver was not able to drop the car off at my house. I selected a local garage with a good reputation. I've had a couple of pre-purchase inspections done there, and am happy with them. The owner is a good fellow.
I walked over to join my wife at her mother's apartment, and then we walked home. An unexpected silver lining was meeting an older fellow who was restoring a '65 Pontiac. The car still had the original 283 and Powerglide, and only 80,000 miles on the clock.
Later on I had this idea that if I could get access to the levers on the tranny (on my Mazda, not the Pontiac), I could manually shift into 1st, and limp the car home from the garage to my house. Off I went this afternoon on my bike, with a saddlebag full of tools. Pulled a bunch of plastic housing, removed the battery and battery tray, and had the desired access to the cable ends and the levers. But ... no go. I could not move the levers to get the car out of R. So it goes. While there, I removed the interior bits required to give access to the shifter cable assembly from inside the car.
If the driver had been able to drop the car off in my driveway, I'm pretty sure I could have made this work, but that's life. (This just occurred to me - if I'd had a helper, perhaps if they'd rocked the car a bit, the tranny would have unlocked enough to allow the shift levers to be moved.)
Monday's a public holiday, so this will all be on hold until Tuesday.
And in a strange coincidence, one of my bike's shifter cables broke while we were riding home from church this morning. That was a 5-minute repair, and at less than $5 for a new cable, will prove to be rather cheaper than the upcoming Mazda repair.
It gets better - due to a requirement for social distancing, the driver was not allowed to give me a ride home.
But wait, there's more ... our street is closed for construction, so the driver was not able to drop the car off at my house. I selected a local garage with a good reputation. I've had a couple of pre-purchase inspections done there, and am happy with them. The owner is a good fellow.
I walked over to join my wife at her mother's apartment, and then we walked home. An unexpected silver lining was meeting an older fellow who was restoring a '65 Pontiac. The car still had the original 283 and Powerglide, and only 80,000 miles on the clock.
Later on I had this idea that if I could get access to the levers on the tranny (on my Mazda, not the Pontiac), I could manually shift into 1st, and limp the car home from the garage to my house. Off I went this afternoon on my bike, with a saddlebag full of tools. Pulled a bunch of plastic housing, removed the battery and battery tray, and had the desired access to the cable ends and the levers. But ... no go. I could not move the levers to get the car out of R. So it goes. While there, I removed the interior bits required to give access to the shifter cable assembly from inside the car.
If the driver had been able to drop the car off in my driveway, I'm pretty sure I could have made this work, but that's life. (This just occurred to me - if I'd had a helper, perhaps if they'd rocked the car a bit, the tranny would have unlocked enough to allow the shift levers to be moved.)
Monday's a public holiday, so this will all be on hold until Tuesday.
And in a strange coincidence, one of my bike's shifter cables broke while we were riding home from church this morning. That was a 5-minute repair, and at less than $5 for a new cable, will prove to be rather cheaper than the upcoming Mazda repair.
