Greetings....
96 Explorer XLT 4WD A/T.
After start-up....pulling lever from Park to reverse all is well....reverse to neutral all is well.....neutral into drive is the problem. Pulling DOWN...there seems to be no detent....if I bump the lever back UP towards neutral, can feel a detent and the shift 'FLAG" indicates neutral.
I have to fiddle and finesse and cuss and wiggle the shift lever to FINALLY engage drive. Transmission shifts normaly.
Have adjusted shift cable per HAYNES manual. Book has no photos/exploded view of the linkage in the column. I have removed the column trim panels and looked (as best I can...limited view) down the column in an attempt to see if anything is loose/broken. There is ALOT of slop and play in the lever when in DRIVE position. Can see nothing broken, and dont know if a bushing has worn out or disintigrated or anything. Am looking for exploded view or info from anyone else who's encountered this. Thanks to all in advance.

 

Anyone else has this problem......check the arm that the shift cable clips onto. There are 2 torx (size T20) screws that enter from the rear (firewall side) that hold the arm to what I will call the shift "rod"....rod being the piece running length of column that the shift lever is drift-pinned on to. The screws were backed WAY out, thus the slop and play.

From the steering wheel looking towards firewall....it looks for all the world like the ''rod" and this arm are all one piece. Never would have known the screws were there without trip to Ford store parts dept. Not bad to fix IF you know where to look for the screws.

 

Thanks Explorer 220k! This did it for me. Came across this thread and said... what the heck...maybe I will be so lucky fthat it may be an easy and cheap fix.

Mine started with real sloppy and tight shift lever. Shifter never did align properly with the P,R,D,1,2, indicators. Got to a point where it wouldn't start in Park, just neutral.

Did as you said and sure enough, the torx screws were super loose. tightened up and shift lever is much more solid and now aligns correctly. Apparently, the trans was not getting fully into park. Lever still a bit tight, but I guess that must be related to the column shaft lube.

First time post. Great people here...have saved me $$$ several times with either stuff I can tackle myself or pointing my mechanic in the right direction for repairs. Cheers to all.