Vintage Cars: 1962 Chevy Impala, rubber bushings, chevy impala

Question
QUESTION: I am experiencing difficulty shifting from neutral to reverse and park, I have done some investigating, found that I am having linkage issues. When in neutral, the lever on the column needs to come towards you to go into reverse and park but from the front seat but will not budge, I can get it to do so from under the hood where the column comes through the firewall with little to no resistance. I have never dealt with any sort of column shift linkage. Can you forward a plan of attack or a heads up to what I might need to do?

ANSWER: if you are saying you can move the linkage from under the hood then you are looking at the actual mechanism within the steering unit. Bolts can loosen and wear can take place that will give these symptoms.  Did it come on gradual( wear sign) or sudden ( bolt loose or off)?
Get a helper to move the shifter and look to see how much movement you are getting under the hood.  If not as much as you can get manually then you will have to dissassemble the steering column to correct.  If you are getting close to the same motion then the problem may be at the tranny housing.  Many of these old linkages had rubber bushings that wear and can cause the issue you describe.Is this a tilt column, if so you may  have to disassemble the column to find the worn parts and/or tighten the tilt mechanism bolts.



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: To follow up... the problem with my linkage came on almost all of a sudden, so I am certain my issues are within the column... I have never torn into a steering column before (manual steering non-tilt by the way) and am wondering on a 1 to 10 scale the difficulty of a job like this.

Answer
I have done this on several cars, the hardest part is removal of large nut on the column, and in some cases just getting to the nut is  the most difficult.  Removing the horn pad is done  carefully, but once in there you should see how to do it.  You may need to have a wheel puller if it has never been off before, and I would suggest finding the torque for the nut when you replace it.  Good Luck