Late 2004 F250 6.0L automatic - Backing out of the driveway yesterday, I got out into the middle of the road, went to shift into drive and the gear shift lever came completely loose. Left me sitting in the middle of the road, stuck in reverse.
I climbed under the truck and found that there is a little white plastic clip in the end of the gear shift cable that attaches it to the lever on the side of the transmission, this had dropped off. Closer inspection showed that whatever spring-loaded part that was supposed to hold it on was gone.

Temporarily I pushed it back and got out of the road - then tie wrapped it back together for now.
All I need is the little plastic insert for the cable end -- called Ford and they want over $90 for the entire gear shift cable.
Does anyone know if it is possible to just buy the plastic insert - it must be worth all of 50c.

 

Try a tranny shop in your area.should have one laying around somewhere,or they could probably get you one.

 

From the title of this thread, I pictured the shift lever on the floor of the cab.

 

I got a 97 250 that has the shift lever behind the front seat,just has a cable hanging from the column to shift gears.

 

Junk yard maybe?

 

You need a matching steering system! (Note the location of the emergency brake. In case of accident, it's automatically deployed by your crotch as you fly forward.)

 

I had the same thing happen to me yesterday in my driveway to my 2004 Crewcab Lariat (5.4) as I pulled in and put it into park. The end of the shift cable had come off the trans and the bushing was gone. I found a replacement bushing set at Advance Auto for $8.00. ("Pedal and shift linkage bushing kit", part # 14041 - go to their web site and search "gear shift bushing")
The package has 5 bushings in it. The next to largest of the three that look similar is the one that fit my truck. It snaps into the cable with a pair of pliers (The "pointy" end of bushing goes in first.) and then I snapped the whole thing back to the tranny with the pliers also. It fit snugly and had a good solid feel to it when it did. Make sure there are no small pieces of the old bushing still inside the cable end. I had to scrape some out before the piece would fit correctly. Also, the flat side of the bushing will fit completely inside the cable end when snapped into place. At first I thought the large bushing in the package might have been the right one but the flat side did not fit inside so it would not snap into place.

The job took me about 5 minutes and I'm a novice. :-)

Hope this helps.

 

Don't forget the two Torx bolts up under the dash on the column
that get loose and drop off and leave you stranded. I hear that
they tend to be loose in a lot of trucks. Truth or not but still good to check.

Sean