[bonneville Joe]

So I was out for an evening cruise in the hardtop tonight and met up with my dad. He had his camcorder with him and we were filming the cars driving. I drove past and pulled onto a side street and went to put the car into reverse and it felt "loose". Somehow by the grace of god it went into drive again and that was it. The shift handle was just dangling around in the console. I got it back to my shop and took the center console out so I could put it in park with some pliers. The base where the handle attaches that has the spring on it was broke in half. I have no idea how it happened. I am always delicate with it and thankfully I had a spare shifter I got in a lot of parts I bought from a friend just a few weeks ago. Took me about 15 minutes to change it out but damn. Chalk this one up to a good story to tell.

[Ben M.]

Originally Posted by bonneville Joe

The base where the handle attaches that has the spring on it was broke in half. I have no idea how it happened.

My '73 Grand Am actually broke the spring when I bought it. I never understood how that could happen either, I just chalked it up to some parts just "die" eventually. Either there was a defect or flaw that made it through Q&A 30 years ago and it lasted this long or someone monkeyed it sometime in the past and it failed years after the fact.