98 chev lumina gear shift issue

[obiwon]

98 chev lumina - having issue changing gear shift from park to reverse, park to drive, drive to park, etc.. has gotten much harder to shift the gear shift from anything to anything else. transmission drives fine once I get it shifted to drive or reverse. No problems there. Just moving the gear shift handle from park to drive takes quite an effort. Is this something simple to fix or am I out a bunch of money?

[inafogg]

colunm or floor shifter?? w/console shifter some times drinks get spilled
& the sugar gets into shift controls.take apart & clean has solved this issue
good luck

[jeffcoslacker]

These cables like to get really stiff in cold weather...is it better after the car has been driven? Usually is, if the cable is the problem.

If not, and it's a console shift, take the above poster's advice. I've seen a little bit of coffee and sugar residue keep a 200 pound man from being able to take it outta park, once it dries up in there enough...

Surprisingly, the majority of the sticky is from the slider window with the pointer on it...even a shot of WD-40 on the PRNDL window will usually make a big difference in these cases...

At any rate, if the cable is the problem, as it was with mine, I simply separated it at the junction under the hood by the airbox and shot oil into the sheath...it softened up the dried grease, works fine now...