Cannot Manually Select 1st Gear

Devn said:

Hey all I have a 1997 K1500 Ext. cab. My shifter cable rusted out under the carpet a few day’s ago. I finally got around to replacing it but I cannot select 1st gear. I have tried the 10 time adjustment thing it doesn’t help at all. I replaced the range sensor. I’m kinda pulling my hair out here any help or insight would be appreciated!

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Cadillacmak said:

I had the same thing on my 97 k2500 Suburban, I had to bend cable mounting at the transmission. Mines a 4l80e so I am not sure if its the same problem.

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Devn said:

Hey all I have a 1997 K1500 Ext. cab. My shifter cable rusted out under the carpet a few day’s ago. I finally got around to replacing it but I cannot select 1st gear. I have tried the 10 time adjustment thing it doesn’t help at all. I replaced the range sensor. I’m kinda pulling my hair out here any help or insight would be appreciated!

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NickTransmissions said:

When you say you cannot select first gear, are you referring to manual low, which is "1" on the in-dash range position indicator?

Are you sure you bought the correct replacement shift cable?

Are you sure it's installed correctly?

Have you manually selected your range positions via the transmission's selector shaft lever to rule out issues with the linkage on the trans itself?

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Devn said:

Yes I am referring to manual low.

I believe I bought the right cable I could only find listings for 118 Inches.

The install seemed pretty straightforward and I’m fairly mechanically inclined so if I did anything wrong I must have missed it.

And yes I can manually select every gear including low gear with the linkage arm.

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NickTransmissions said:

Ok, that's good - no issues internal to the transmission...So, when shifting gears using your column shifter, you should have the following detents available to you from Park:

1. Reverse
2. Neutral
3. Drive
4. Drive3
5. Manual 2nd
6 Manual Low

From what I recall from replacing my own cable (03 Tahoe Z71 4WD, which should be the same cable as yours), I never adjusted it...I simply installed it and went. I'll have to double check but I think there's a small bracket or retainer on the Tcase to route the cable...Which leads me to my next thought which whether or not there are two different cables: one for 2WD vehicle and another for 4WD vehicles...Perhaps someone can weigh in and confirm/deny...

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Devn said:

At this point I’m not wondering if I got a defective cable that somehow got stretched or messed up in someway before I received it. Right out of the packaging it had this issue. It feels like I have done everything under the sun to remedy this and I just can’t fix it. The cable seems like it just isn’t tight enough to pull into first or something.

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NickTransmissions said:

Who makes the cable?

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Devn said:

I think I may have found out why it was cheap I suppose.

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