Sorry. Guess my memory only got half of it right. Getting old is tough.
But I do still remember: Neutral, set parking brake, shift PTO, shift to Drive to pump. Hell yeah ! I could get water if I needed to.

 

Lolll !!! Yup, those were the good old days when I would drive the trucks, Captain now so the challenge is different but I sure miss the old days !!!

 

Soft Bushing with nylon cup that snaps on to transmission bracket

Cable end (Transmission end) with bushing off

 

Since it was just the bushing that was not snapping onto the ball of the tranny bracket, I sourced a local junkyard and found a 2005 Cobalt SS with the same end bushings which I split the middle where the rubber was fused together and pressed it out. I then did the same on my HHR and used some industrial silicone to re-fuse it together. It is pressed on quite tight without the silicone but it’s extra measure to do so... Going on 2 weeks and it shifts beautifully.....I’m still on the lookout for new cables, even took it up with GM Canada without success.

 

Is the Cobalt SS cable too short to work?

 

I didn’t remove the cables because the car was in a precarious position for me to remove the 10mm nut under the car near the firewall but on the shifter end and tranny end they look identical, just curious on the length and shape of the firewall/floor grommet

 

So my 2008 SS had been having an intermittent hard shift that transitioned into constantly hard to shift - going into & out of gear worked ok but selecting which gear was difficult and actually got to the point that I could not get it to shift into first or second gear. We popped the cables off at the transmission and there was no change in how the shifter felt when trying to move it left or right. We disconnected the cables from the shifter and it moved freely.

What we found when we removed the cables from the car was that the cable that would select which portion of the H- pattern you were in was next to impossible to move. It also appeared that it was built without seals on the ends of the cable. We started soaking it with penetrating oil and moving it as much as we could. At the end of the day, we could almost move the cable to the limit of its travel in both directions. The next day I continued applying oil and working it back and forth. Figured out that if I went from the shifter side, the retainer formed a ‘cup’ around the movable portion of the cable so I started filling that up with oil and working the cable back and forth to get that oil into the outer jacket. After several applications, I started getting what looked like dirt on the transmission end of the cable. I continued applying oil every 10-15 minutes, then stopped to do some paperwork and came back to this dirty puddle of oil on the floor. Cable is 100% freed up now and has been reinstalled. The car shifts great. Still keeping my eyes open for a replacement set of cables but thought I would share my experience here in case anyone else is having a similar problem.

 

FYI; there are product for the purpose, this one among others.

 

Lubrication and is the key to keeping shifter, e brake and throttle cables moving and usable.

 

I found this product works well with cables also.

https://lucasoil.com/products/motorc...n-lube-aerosol