What is up with these Ford steering column shifter shafts? I had to replace the one on my F450 less then 5 months ago when one of the bolts broke out of the bottom of the shaft. I got an used column from my friend and pulled the shift shaft off of it.
Today when I was backing my truck and trailer in at home I had to pull back forward to jockey the trailer, when I shifted to drive from reverse I heard a pop, I looked under the dash the part that broke before was not this time. I pulled forward , tried to hit reverse and all I got was neutral. I hit the e brake and tried to put it in reverse from the top side, then crawled under and tried off the trans. It would go into drive but not reverse. I unhooked the trailer and rolled it back. I ended up parking the truck in the front yard in neutral with the E brake on. Man this crap gets old. How often does this happen to other people on here? I replaced my Brother-in -laws on his Bronco last year too. WHAT GIVES???

 

I have seen a couple but its always been one of 3 things that caused it:
1. Parking on a hill with a load and not setting e-brake.
2. Snatching on the shifter, especially pulling on it before pushing brake pedal to release interlock....I have to catch myself on this one
3. Slamming it into park.

Usually though its the first one that causes it the most often

 

If anyone ever did those horrible things to my truck....they'd be lucky to be driving with hand controls the rest of their short lives ! BTW, replacing one on my buds 99 SD right now , its got 195k I think it just gave up the ghost, the shorter....that is !

 

Not to go to off topic but my shifter has some slop in it, when I shift into drive I sometimes have to put into 2 then bump it up a little into d how can I adjust that. And the other day I was parked on an incline, no load but I still put on the e-brake. when I got back in my truck to start it the darn thing would not turn over, I had dash lights but nothing when I turned the key full forward. I then released the e-brake and tried to start it again and it fired right up I am kinda stumped on this one sorry to jack the thread but I was kinda wondering if the two had anything in common

 

I have no clue how the previous driver treated the truck as it was part of PG&E's fleet in California. I think the one that I got off a friend was damaged since it was on a column that had the airbag deployed, i was looking at broken shaft today, you can tell that it was cracked over half way around, and had been for a while, the part that broke last night was bright colored. I bit the bullet and got a new one from the steelership, but used a buddies account so it was under 32 bucks with tax....
I guess the good thing about it is after doing it once before I changed it out in about 25 minutes flat this time!

 

Sorry missed your question but here are some links to adjustments.
Here's some helpful adjustment information...

Here's a link to what Mark was talking about, https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/64...t-linkage.html

Here's one for the adjustment of the linkage, https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/84...djustment.html

Here's a pic of the thumbwheel which will just adjust the pointer once the trans is verified to be in the correct gear, https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/83...-the-mark.html

Back to the OP sorry about the highjack. Hopefully your new shifter will do the trick? IDK it seems kinda odd to have broken them.

 

I was searching because i was having the same problem with slop in the shifter on my Excursion as the guy you put the links up for... when I clicked on them it says page missing. I need to adjust the shifter cable on the trans end. the white clip has come loose from the black part and it has about 1 inch of movement.

 

I think what happened is when it broke the first time you didn't find the reason it happened. So whatever is wrong inside the transmission hasn't been fixed and caused the second failure.

If you can't move the lever on the side of the trans into reverse there is something down there that is blocking it. The first thing to try is remove the TRS. That's the sensor on the driver's side of the transmission. Now try to get it in reverse. If it goes into reverse you need a new TRS. If not, you need to remove the pan and see what's wrong in there.

 

Sorry I guess I was not being clear, the F450 that was the original problem works just fine still after the rebuild over a year ago.

I was having issues with the new to me 2000 excursion that I bought 2 weeks ago. It had some slop in it when I bought it. I just now got around to checking on the reason for it. The screws were tight on the column shifter end. I found the other end of the cable, where it attaches to the transmission, near the switch was loose, it was tight on the lever, but the white piece that attaches it all together was loose allowing the black part at the end of the shifter cable to move freely about an inch, after i just manned up and popped it off I found had just come undone, and was loose. I popped it back on, moved the trans to make sure it was in park, which it was and used my channel locks to pop it back closed. I checked and I have all my gears, the indicator is dead centered in the right spot in all gears and it has no play in it at all.
Thanks for your reply though.

 

Too late for me to edit that post, not real sure what happened...

PRND2L Range Sensor Adjustment

To adjust the pointer there is a thumbwheel behind the fuse panel.

And of course there are the Torx screws at the end of the shift tube that are problematic usually accompanied by a sloppy shifter.

 

Yup, that was the first thing I checked, my problem was at the other end of the shifter cable, at the transmission.

 

The "Blue" PRND2L Adjustment is a link to that.

But here it is https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/8...djustment.html

 

Sure the link works now.... that sounds about right, for some reason it was coming up as "page missing" when I clicked them at 4 in the morning, when I could not call anyone one for more info.

I have the link saved now, though after last night, I don't think I would ever forget it.

 

AGREED! I replace mine every 6 months. I have a 1994 Ford F350 Dump Truck. It has a REALLY heavy duty transmission of some sort because its a bear to shift. When it goes into gear, you know it! It uses the same shifter tube as all the other F series and it eats one every 6 months! it sucks that you cant find a heavy duty one of these, and the ones from Ford are just as bad as the Doorman ones.

This is just a poorly designed light duty part. Plain and simple. I had the same issue with Idler arms in my 1993 GMC 3500 Dually. it would eat them for breakfast! it was the same ones they would put in the 1500s and then bolt the dually rims and tires on the truck and expect it to deal with the extra punishment. Once a year I was replacing that....

It is now to the point that I keep a spare in the truck with the tolls necessary to change it on the fly. That is crazy.

I have thought of taking my spare, to a machine shop and having one made out of stainless. I would rather pay $500 for 1 and do the job once, than pay $33 a piece for the part and change them in the middle of winter when I am stuck with it somewhere.

If anyone knows someplace to order a heavy duty one I would gladly do it.

 

Secbyte,
This is an 8 year old post, these are for research not being brought back from the LONG dead.