MrSeabass
07-02-2009, 09:51 PM
It's been a while since I have posted (or even visited) this site because for all purposes, my VUE has never buggered me with anything troublesome. What drew me back was when I realized I just signed my final payment check; I forgot that it was almost five years ago to the day that I purchased it new off the lot. Thinking about it a bit longer, I noticed that the only things that I have done to the car was the regular oil change. Add to that a new set of tires one year ago, a hand wash here and there, a new radio, peel-and-paint the flaky dash, and I've spent the past trouble-free 50K miles just driving it. Very few other cars in my family hold that distinction, and several of us still have daily drivers that passed 250K on the clock. This includes sporadic driving disciplines, ranging from light driving for a year to racking up 18K in less than eight months. Yay me!
With that being said, I am mired in the dog days of summer with little to do and penchant to not leave the house. My internship, which blossomed into a full time job last year, was supposed to start two months ago. Unfortunately the economy ate my position this summer leaving me with a lack of income and too much free time. So I do what I like the best: taking things apart and putting them back together, either to repair it or just to satisfy my curiosity. The world is my Erector set.
Because I had the center dash out recently to do something about the gaudy soft-touch paint flaking more than my dad's scalp, I poked around the bits that needed poking. Everything seemed like it was in good standing until after I put everything back in and drove it around. The shifter after all these years still goes into gear smoothly, but it dawned on me just how loose the ball joint holding it in place was. Maybe it was because of the plastic housing, but whatever the reason it shouldn't have that much deflection while in gear. Now this was nothing new to me; I always commented that the lever could be moved from side to side while in gear, but I didn't realize I could nearly measure it in inches! This does bother me, as my father's Solstice has a shifter which snaps into place and stays there. Because the parts holding it all together looked like it would be a pain to remove (properly), I chickened out of exploring it further. That is, until now.
I would like to know if this is a common issue for the manual VUEs, and if there is some way to tighten it up a bit. I can see the four or five spacers move within the ball joint and would think that locking them in place would do the trick, but I would like to know if anyone else has attempted a remedy for this. I can live with this since I don't drive down the road constantly wiggling my shifter, but I would like to correct it. At minimum I just want an excuse to take it all apart again.
With that being said, I am mired in the dog days of summer with little to do and penchant to not leave the house. My internship, which blossomed into a full time job last year, was supposed to start two months ago. Unfortunately the economy ate my position this summer leaving me with a lack of income and too much free time. So I do what I like the best: taking things apart and putting them back together, either to repair it or just to satisfy my curiosity. The world is my Erector set.
Because I had the center dash out recently to do something about the gaudy soft-touch paint flaking more than my dad's scalp, I poked around the bits that needed poking. Everything seemed like it was in good standing until after I put everything back in and drove it around. The shifter after all these years still goes into gear smoothly, but it dawned on me just how loose the ball joint holding it in place was. Maybe it was because of the plastic housing, but whatever the reason it shouldn't have that much deflection while in gear. Now this was nothing new to me; I always commented that the lever could be moved from side to side while in gear, but I didn't realize I could nearly measure it in inches! This does bother me, as my father's Solstice has a shifter which snaps into place and stays there. Because the parts holding it all together looked like it would be a pain to remove (properly), I chickened out of exploring it further. That is, until now.
I would like to know if this is a common issue for the manual VUEs, and if there is some way to tighten it up a bit. I can see the four or five spacers move within the ball joint and would think that locking them in place would do the trick, but I would like to know if anyone else has attempted a remedy for this. I can live with this since I don't drive down the road constantly wiggling my shifter, but I would like to correct it. At minimum I just want an excuse to take it all apart again.