What to do if your 2005 Wrangler shift cable breaks

It was Thursday afternoon and boy was it hot outside! My wife wanted to go pay a close friend a visit and decided to take our 2005 Jeep Wrangler. It was about a 30 minute commute and after spending a few hours there, she decided it was time to come home.

It was about then, when I received a phone call. She told me that she started the Jeep and for some reason, it wouldn't go into gear! Of course she was panicking a little. I tried my best to understand what she was talking about. I had all kinds of visions of the transmission being shot, and wondered how many thousands THAT was going to cost!

It turns out that the gear selector (automatic transmission) would move just fine, but it wouldn't go into any gear. The Jeep remained in park the entire time, no matter what direction she moved the shift lever. All I could think of then, was maybe (hopefully) the end of the cable had fell off of the shift arm on the transmission. That seemed strange but I was hopeful.

I drove home, packed up some tools and headed her way. Luckily she was in no hurry, it was quite a drive over there. I pulled up behind our 05 and took out my tool box. I had to go inside and get the keys from my wife before I could see what was happening. It turns out that she wasn't exaggerating. It was doing exactly as she said.

I put the Jeeps parking brake on for safety and climbed underneath to take a peek. Luckily my Jeep is way off the ground, no jack needed! I searched and found the problem. The shift cable had a factory nylon bushing (that is supposed to hold it in place) that had crumbled to pieces. I knew I was going to have to rig it somehow, just to get it home. Luckily I had a few tools with me and I picked a pair of channel lock pliers out. I placed the end of the shifter cable over the shifter arm and clamped the pliers tight. That seemed to work to drive it home.

Once I got home, I looked up the local Jeep dealers phone number. I called and asked for parts. I described the part that I needed only to find out they didn't offer a replacement bushing. I was going to have to replace the ENTIRE shifting cable assembly. Now it was only $24.80 plus tax, but I would have to remove the entire shifter and run the new cable down and all of the other finger busting work that went with it. I wasn't about to do that so I decided instead to go to the hardware store.

I arrived at Home Depot later in the evening and sorted through the misc cabinets they have in the "hardware section." I picked out a number of bushings, rubber o rings, cotter pins and anything else I could think of.

Later I arrive back home to see if anything would work. I crawled under the Jeep and placed a treble light up along the frame so I could see. If it wasn't for the wasp nest located in the neighbors patio, I might have finished a lot sooner! Luckily the wasps went away and I was back at it again. I tried several different things and none of them seemed to hold the cable end in place. Luckily the LAST thing I had seemed to work. I trimmed one of the rubber o rings down to fit inside of the cable end. I then placed it on the shifter assembly. The shifter assembly has what looks like a "small ball socket" and it protrudes out a little from the cable end. So I managed to hold it in place and slide a nice heavy duty cotter pin over the ball socket. I let go and it HELD!!! I asked my wife to run the shifter back and forth several times, and so far so good. I will keep my fingers crossed, but spending about $5 on misc hardware items is so much better than replacing the entire cable!

I hope this article will help some others. The part number for the cable is 52109624AD if you decide to do it the right way. In the meantime you can get by just fine, the way I explained above.