I have a 1991 5.0L V8. This is my daily driver and the only car that is (or was) completely working in our family, so it is important to keep it running. The yesterday when i was accelerating onto the interstate, the car sort of "bucked" for lack of a better term, and I heard a loud popping noise. The car seemed to run fine. However, when I got off the interstate and had to stop, when I put it into first and accelerated mildy hard to start going again, the whole shift lever rose up a few inches. It does not seem to do this in any other gear, nor does it seem to affect performance. It also doesn't do this when I accelerate gradually. Any help you have would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

Check your transmission mounts. Sounds like you may have ripped one loose and the torque from 1st gear is lifting the whole assembly.

 

Thank you for the help. Sorry that it took so long to reply. Got it fixed. It was an issue with the mount. Turns out that the bolt from the mount to the crossbrace had an end sheered off. Thanks for the help.

 

I would like to re-open this issue for more advice on the same problem. I did fix the tranny mount and that fixed the problem for a while until last friday when the same thing with the shift lever started to happen again. I went under the car and the tranny mount is still intact. I'm not sure what the problem might be now. The only thing I can think of is it might be the motor mount. But any advice or ideas anyone has would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

Another Tucson guy huh?

I've had a similar problem to this in trucks in the past. I'm assuming you have a T-5 On an old nissan I had, the shifter would rise, it turned out to be a bad clutch/pressure plate that put tension and wouldn't let it shift. It would be caught "between" gears and only drive in first. I gave up and dropped the trans to find a severely messed up clutch, after replacing it it was normal. I'm not sure a motor mount would do it, but not a bad idea.

 

you may be missing a bolt from your torque arm,where it bolts to tranny enabling it to push tranny up.

 

someone else had the exact same issue, and it returned about a month later. his turned out to be the cheap mount that he bought had broken. it wasnt visibly torn, but when pried on, it had come apart. get under the car with a pry bar and try lifting up on the tranny. did you fix it yourself or have a shop do it?

 

I fixed it myself. It's probably not relevant, but when I was trying to get the old tranny mount off of the tranny, I had a lot of trouble getting the two bolts off. I ended up having to use a good impact gun to get them off. Just trying to give as much info as possible since I'm really no expert at any of this. But ya it was a cheap mount. Like $6. Just picked it up at Autozone. I know there are polymounts that are higher quality (and more expensive) but I also hear that they transfer a lot more vibrations into the car. But ya any reccomendations you have would be greatly appreciated. That may be right though, what you're saying, because the shift lever isn't raising as drastically as it was with the original problem. Thanks for the help.

 

i would say pull it off again and check it. i put a trans mount in my fiance's blazer (the cheap one) and one of the bolts broke right off when i tightened it. its still better than the one in there, but will have to go back soon. while youre under there, locate the mount and just pry on them a few different ways to check them. the best place is between the bracket on the motor and the metal backing of the piece on the cross member