Pulled into the driveway last night and put truck in park, shifter column got real loose. Had to shut off truck, pop hood and put into park from the linkage. Now truck wont start, can't use the shifter column, do I need to get another column? Or is there a fix for this problem.Went through 34 pages of back posts in the steering forum with no luck. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Mine did the same thing 2 days ago. Today I am going to try to just adjust the linkage, the bolt may have backed out enough for the rod to slip on the selector down on the trans.

 

Pull the steering wheel. Check the shifter sleeve at the top of the colum. It's probaby broken. It's about a $30 fix. Not too difficult.

The fact that the truck doesn't start underscores the sleeve being the culprit. If it's broken, the neutral safety switch isn't being activated.

 

Look under the hood, bottom of the steering column at the control selector lever. There should be a snap in plastic bushing there. Another one is on the manual control lever on the transmission. No/worn/broken bushing = no gears.

Bushings are OK = truck will not go into Park, but will hold in other gears: On the bottom of the upper flange inside the column is a half moon shaped shift gate (Insert). It has individual gates where the tab on the shift lever fits. The gate between reverse and park breaks off, usually caused by yanking the lever out of park. crummy diagram of shift gate = \ P I R I N I D I 2I 1 /

Gearshift lever flops around = Bad shift collar or broken shift tube.

 

It is possible the shifter tube inside the column has twisted inside the shifter fork .

 

I was thinking, If the shift tube is broken, can I use a shift tube from a 78-79? Or is the tube different from the 77 tube? thanks for all the info.

 

No,

77 or earlier.

The 78/79 didn't have the NSS actuator on it.

The NSS was moved to the trans in 78

 

1973/77 F100/350's use two different shift tubes. One for automatic, one for manual.

E3TZ-7212-A .. Shift Tube-Manual Transmission

E3TZ-7212-G .. Shift Tube-Automatic Transmission

The above prefixes/suffixes represent Ford updated part numbers.

 

Thanks for the information Bill, The part # you included , is that still available through Ford? Going to take it apart tomorrow to make sure that is the problem.

 

I just wanted to thank you guys for all the info. Decided to just replace the whole column (being 30 years old) and keep the parts for extras.Turns out my cousin knows a guy that has an extra column, and it's only going to cost $50.

 

Going to get a floor shifter right now.

 

I figured since I was getting another steering column, I would take the old one apart to see what the problem was exactly, Turns out the shift collar split and completely destroyed the shift tube, looks like it had been bad for awhile. Saving all the best parts for just in case. Thanks again for all your help.