Heard a new one today...

Note to self: Stop letting my car run while I pick up coffee in the morning.

 

Do you have a handgun carry permit? Maybe she was talking about your gun!

 

My 77 Mav has the decal on the dash regarding the shift problem and it did happen to me once while siting in the garage with the door to the garage open. Luckily I had my foot firmly on the brake, but it was a surprise. When I bought the car, the older gentleman that I bought it from, mentioned that it had happened to him and sugested using the parking brake when parking the car. Mine has the sloppy shift lever syndrome. What is the solution to the problem besides going to a floor mounted shifter?

 

Start under the car at the transmission, look at the rod that actually does the shifting. You'll see there's a slot in there for you to adjust, (however it's not an adjustment problem. The best you'll be able to accomplish with that is insuring you're in "park" while the needle says "R," and you'll be unable to consistently get it into "1.") Anyway, follow that rod. It will be attached to a lever on the firewall. Check out that lever and everything connected to it. You will most likely find a bushing, nylon I think, that is either crumbled, worn out, or missing entirely. That's the cause of the slop. I have no idea where to get these new, or if there's a substitute part you can get. I lucked up on one at a junkyard.

 

Thanks. I'll check it out.

 

I guess I'm lucky. I've never had the jumping into reverse problem, only the "holding the shifter up into park hard enough to disengage the neutral safety switch so it'll start" problem.

 

The only bad thing someone ever told me about Mavericks was that they were pretty crap cars back when Mustangs, Chargers and Novas were around. Well of course, they were economy cars.

It was all in good natured since the guy telling me this told me he quit on Mavs after his third one crapped out on him. He was around 20 when this happened to him and was just getting into the car stuff. He actually found it funny seeing one for the first time in close to 18 years. He's still not fond of them since 2 of them kept him stranded on the roads.

Oh well, they all have their opinions and I can respect that. I don't think anyone has really bad mouthed my car yet. And the guy who I was talking about was really cool anyway and introduced me to his mechanic who works a lot on older cars and is a great guy as well.

I do remember though a lady asking me how long I've had my Maverick and she mentioned how much the car reminded her of her old Pinto due to the front end. Told me to take good care of my Mav.

 

BTW let me just add this. Recently I noticed a 70s Comet on the road and some of the people I was with pointed it out to me but they thought it was a Camaro. Now i know some of out cars have been mistaken for Camaros before but I expect that this mistaken identity will be much bigger now due to the new Camaro's taillights resembling those of the 70s Comets.

 

Personally all I ever heard was the Camaro reference about my car bitd....and I thought WTF?

Now I ride a Kawasaki Vulcan with huge ape hangers and I get "Nice Harley".

 

I had one guy say to me "You must know alot about AMC's" I said "not really, but they did use some Ford parts....."

Anyways, how could they be any worse than any other car from the same period..it's all the same stuff, same engines for all Ford's, same batteries, same suspension as Mustangs...

 

Yup, compared to working on and keeping this 92' sentra going the mav is so easy.