91 535iA, gear indicator does not match reality

[Rigmaster]

So, I replaced the driveshaft in my wife's 91 535iA today with a remaned driveshaft with greaseable/replaceable u-joints. This took care of ALOT of the shimmy/vibration issues we have been having with this car for a long time.

Problem is, in the process, I managed to get the shifter/shift indicator out of sync with the tranny. I removed the rear tranny crossmember to get the driveshaft out, and the tranny dropped down a little, but nothing outrageous. Now the car will go into D, but the indicator on the dash is blank- same with all other gear positions, they seem to be about 1/2 position off. The indicator will go through all the different letters (PRND) but the car is not in R when the indicator is showing R, etc. Not being terribly familiar with how this linkage works, and not being able to find my E34 Bentley manual- can anyone shed some light on this and what I'll need to do to fix it?? If possible, I'd like to do the work from the topside- through the shifter hole....




Bret.

[winfred]

it's possible you streached the shifter cable sheath or maybe popped the crimped end off as it gets tight when you drop the back end, if theres nothing obvious put the shifter in park and loosen the tranny end and make sure the tranny is in park then tighten and see if it's happy

[Robert K]

It appears that your shifter cable is out of adjustment. I just checked my Bentley manual. There is a cable that runs from the gear selector inside the cabin to the manual valve lever at the tranny on the driver's side.

To adjust the cable, first put the gear selector (at the console) into "Park. Then, you need to crawl under the car and locate the shift lever on the tranny. Once you've located it, you'll need to loosen a nut on the the pin that goes through the hole in the manual valve lever at the tranny, which frees up the cable. Then, you push that lever all the way forward toward the engine, which puts the tranny in "Park." Pull slightly on the cable to take the slack out of it and tighten the locking nut back up. Now all you should have to do is start the car to see if everything works properly.

Hope this takes care of it for you.

Grace and peace,

Robert K
1991 535i

[Rigmaster]

Thanks guys. I'm gonna check into it again tomorrow after work. The car is 100% driveable, it's just a bit disconcerting for my wife to see the indicator reading something wrong.

I'll let you know how it turns out.


Bret.

[Rigmaster]

Got it figured out- but I hate that the car thinks it's smarter than me....


I drove the car to work today, at the request of Mrs Rig. I went out at lunch for a Dr. appointment, but the car would not go- the check engine light came on and the trans program message came up on the cluster. I tried a couple of times to restart the car, but it was locked in limp mode. SOOOOO I borrowed a co-workers car to get to my appointment.

After work, I pulled the codes using the code reader, and it came up with something like "torque convertor lockup too high". I cleared the codes, and re-adjusted the shifter cable at the tranny, and it's A-OK! Drives great, even got rid of lots of the shimmy that it had previously.

I guess the tranny computer was confused, because when the car was in Drive, the indicator was blank or showed Neutral. Funny thing is that I drove it like this for about 40 miles before any codes were set.






Bret.