Originally Posted By: LT4 Vette
I notice on older Hondas with manual transmissions that the gear lever gets very sloppy and has lots of play when it is in gear or in Neutral.
Yep, very common. Honda sells a kit to fix this problem, about $50 or so. Easy to do, but really fiddly due to lack of room under there.
Below is why it happens:
There are rubber "washers", plus plastic "top hats", and a few other parts that make up the bushing kit.
In this photo, shifter is turned sideways so that it's easier to re-and-re the bushings.
You can see the new "top hats" partially pressed in place, one on either side. There's a dab of yellowish silicone grease inside the front top hat. The engine side of the linkage can be seen sitting just below the shifter, on the exhaust heat-shield.
In this image, I'm demonstrating the use of a small C-clamp to press the new sleeve and O-rings into the shifter tube.
The NEW sleeve does not yet have its O-rings. The OLD sleeve is being used as a fulcrum to press the new in place, but would have its O-rings REMOVED before use!
More images here, numbered in the order they were taken:
http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/misc/bushing_kit/
Take a look at them all. Too many to post here.
This is one of those web pages I never got around to working on, so I just threw the pictures up in a Misc directory.
And lastly... Occasionally the cross-bolt can work loose. It's not supposed to do that, of course, but since it's hard to get leverage on the bolt, it's possible to undertorque it when installing. If somebody's already replaced the bushings once, check the bolt for looseness before condemning the bushings themselves!