my mom's 95 shifter is slowly getting worse. right now it's at the point where we have to hunt for gears just to put it into park or reverse or d/od. it's not stiff like the rest of ours, hers is all sloppy and loose. she says it's been doing this for a while, but i think it got worse when i pulled her cluster out to change the light bulbs. I say this because i couldn't get the needle cable un done, so i just let the cluster rest on it while i was changing the bulbs, which put a little bit of tension on it.

 

remove shofter and try to take it apart on bench, and you will know is it possible to fix it ore to get one on JY. My friend had bad shifter and we replaced it with Scorpio on floor shifter.

 

HA!!! my girlfriend figured it out. if it werent for her probably would have torn the steering column all apart to figure it out, since i had to wiggle a weird way to see that the bolts at the end of the shifter were both loose. she's smaller than i am, and was able to see them right off the bat.

any ways it was the two bolts shown in the picture below that had wiggled loose and was making the shifter all sloppy.



hopefully this thread will help others in the future

 

I will definitly check that in my girls '95 Aero, cause her shifter is so sloopy and it drives her and I nuts.

I'll come back and let you know if that fixes it on her's.

 

i had sloppy steering column shifters on MB trucks and I used Therad lock.... then to change them mechanics had some pain.

 

Do you think this is caused by the bolts just working themselves loose from normal use, or could it be that the driver is not always pulling up on the lever all the way, and fighting the lever locks, causing more stress than normal?

 

I think both. my mom said that she had been lazy and was just dragging it around, i told her not to do that because it will cause this plus could cause the shifter to brake... we had to replace one once in my dad's old 94 (rip) and it wasn't cheap, and that was ten years ago (like 200 bux)

 

[quote=DCRB;8049876]HA!!! my girlfriend figured it out. if it werent for her probably would have torn the steering column all apart to figure it out, since i had to wiggle a weird way to see that the bolts at the end of the shifter were both loose.



Hey DCRB

Thanks so much for posting your fix. I have had the same problem with my 96 F150, and was just about to take the column apart when I read you post. Just fixed it and all is right again. Made my day.

 

you are VERY welcome! share the info around the board, i know that more than just aerostars use colum shifters (like what, every ford from like 92 to present?) and i'm sure this info will help others.

oh yeah, kate says you are welcome too. lolz

 

What do I need to remove to get to this part to tighten?

 

nothing really, i removed the plastic panel and the metal panel behind it under the steering wheel to see better but to actually get to the bolts you just crawl on your back under the dash board and look strait up, you'll see them.

 

This fixed the slop in my shifter, both bolts were completely loose. Now its like new again, I bet this is what everyone's slop is from...

 

hahaha this fixed several uhaul trucks at my girlfriend's work too. she now checks every truck that comes into her work for this, since the lazy shop guys wont do it.

 

Well I finally got around to getting under the dash and that was it. The bolts were both very loose. Good call on this fix.

For those that may have this issue also and are having a hard time finding the bolts we are talking about on the shifter linkage. It is located just above and forward (toward the diriver) of first steering shaft U-joint.

 

I echo Don S's response. Good call on this one. I had replaced the shifter a little while ago, so was pretty sure that there were simply some screws loose- well besides the ones in my head... Crawled underneath, and sure enough, those two bolts were loose. T-27 star bit fit, no need to remove anything. 5 minutes, and it was done. Thanks!