Search the Community

I'll try to be brief as possible: I recently had my clutch replaced. Shortly after replacement, i was shifting to 5th and it felt 'spongy' (for lack of a better word). The feeling came and went, but i never had any issues shifting into gear. Today, i shifted from 4th to 5th and nothing, the car acted like it wasn't in gear and the shifter flopped back to center. It went back into 4th and i was able to continue on (thankfully i was close to home). Now the selector will randomly go into 1st, and 5th or not. I was finally able to identify the cable (linkage?) is bending when its fully extended for 1st/5th gear right where it comes out of the support bracket and the rubber boot starts. I can feel a metal collar or such under the rubber boot sliding back and forth, so when it fully extends for 1st/5th gear, it's far enough away from the support bracket that the cable underneath has no support and flexes, thus not providing enough rigidity to get the transmission into gear. I can manually shift the gears with my hand and i don't feel any binding. Can anybody tell me if something broke and the whole cable needs replaced or can it be adjusted to fix? I've seen mixed comments on cable replacement (take out the whole dash or not). Haynes manual talks about draining A/C and heater coil like the whole dash would need to come out. Is that true for a 2006 or could i do it over the weekend? 2006 Ford Fusion - manual transmission (obviously). PS - the car has 236K miles, so i'm sure the mechanic will say wear/tear, but it sure is coincidental that it happened right after being serviced. If it's broke, could they have bent/damaged it while removing the transmission? Thanks in advance for any advice.