My son's '03 Mazda 6 has around 170K on it, 6 cylinder and 5 speed. He tried backing out of the driveway, and when moving the shifter he heard a metallic sound. Now the car is stuck in 2nd gear. The shifter only moves fore and aft, not side to side. It doesn't matter if the clutch is engaged or not.

On Saturday we popped the covers off the center console and all looks good. We removed the battery and battery tray, and then disconnected the shift cables from the tranny. The shifter now moves freely in all directions. We can move the (upper) linkage on the tranny that connects to the fore and aft shift cable, but the (lower) linkage on the tranny that connects to the side to side shift cable will not move (we did not push hard).

Any thoughts? I was HOPING it would be the shift cables, but I fear there is a problem internal to the transmission. (Somebody in another forum posted that a roll pin in the area where the shift cable attaches to the transmission may have sheared off, but we did not see where this roll pin might be.)

 

It sounds like it's internal. Probably a worn out shift fork/sleeve, a broken synchro, or a reverse idler problem. They really are not that hard to repair. Just flip it onto a table with the bell housing down and you can have the cover off in 10 minutes or less which lets you see everything internal.

 

That sounds about right. I am thinking synchro related, too. Not sure if this would be an easy project for us, but we have done dumber things.

 

Speaking of dumb things, I meant to say shift fork related. The car is stationary, so I don't think a synchro would be the cause. Thanks for the suggestion.