shifter cable broken?

[jakk220]

Ok so I just got done with swapping in my built motor and now I have a few small things holding me up, but this seems to be the most annoying one. For some reason my shifter cables have gone on the fritz and do not want to work right. When I try to move the shifter left to right it seems very stiff. Also its hard to get into first gear and almost all the rest. I noticed that right by the rubber boot on the cable that's on the left its separated from the rubber boot exposing the cable and instead of shifting the car into reverse it just separates further in that spot. I was able to slide it back in the rubber boot and put the little clamp back on and it worked for a minute, but was extremely sloppy and hard to get into gears. Now mind you these cables worked fine before the old engine was removed so now why the problem? Is the shifter cable screwed and I have to get another one? If so what cables will work I.e. 2g FWD cables? 98 spyder AWD cables? Any year 2g 4g63? Please help with any info, this is one of the only things stopping me from driving my car right now. Thanks

 

[motozachl]

Sounds like they might have gotten damaged while removing/installing the engine. Yes any 2g 4g63 manual cables will work

 

[jakk220]

Sweet thanks. Ill probably go look at the junk yard today for some shifter cables then.

Also do you know how hard it is or how to remove the sift cables?

 

[RedVengeAPX]

Just out of curiosity did you install the cables the same way you took them off? It can be easy to cross them if your not paying attention, also check maybe see if they are crossed and binding up.

To take them off is easy, remove the side panels on the center look all the way back under the heater vents and you will see a silver plate with I think its 2 14mm nuts. Once those are off make sure both ends of the cables are disconnected and just start feeding it through the firewall towards the engine bay I believe.

I had an issue with mine only going into all the gears it would only do 4 of the 6, ordered a set of 96+ cables and it fixed the issue.

 

[jakk220]

Well I didn't take the brackets off the cables so I think the will only go back on 1 way. But I got a guy parting out a tsi near me so im gonna pick those up and it should resolve the issue. Good thing there not hard to replace from the sound of it. Now all I gotta do is fix my small oil leak and its time to break in the new motor