"How involved it may be to push the KD cable on the transmission end into its right place?"

Try Randy's earlier suggestion for lubricating the cable from under the hood. There is plenty of pulley force to "pull" it out, but only weaker (relatively speaking) spring tension to retract it.

I was able to free up a stuck cable by patiently working at it with pliers till some back and forth movement was possible. At that point I took the cable and sheath out of the pulley and adjuster bracket and began to apply ATF to the exposed cable, so it ran down and seeped into the sheath. (See Photo, a different car but same principle.)

Periodically the ATF drip was interrupted to repeat the range-of-motion exercise with pliers, and eventually (a few hours) the cable was totally free to retract on its own and could be adjusted.

ATF Drip


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Bruce Young, '93 940-NA (current), 240s (one V8), 140s, 122s, since '63.