Luck I guess. I just shift it carefully. I bought at 187K so maybe it was rebuilt once before me. A complete re-do of all things steering column, etc., has never made it to the front of the line.

So starting in on the main Torx screws with all 3 lock points (wheel, tube, cylinder) all currently locked won’t pop the little spring or stretch the cable or cause any other exciting extra credit homework?

All material I have seen on this seems to presume starting with everything unlocked rather than the other way around.

 

Im sorry but I don't understand what you're saying. Can you just take the shift tube and key cylinder out, and make sure they put it back together correctly?

 

No, the key cylinder won’t come out because it can’t be turned from the Off position, neither to ACC nor Run; it can only be removed while at Run. The cylinder itself probably wouldn’t be important here, but it is held in place by an arm that slides up from below - that is stuck. As is the shift tube itself. I don’t know what locks them like that. Trans went into Park normally.

 

Well for now I just dropped the column. My T30 bit is too old/rounded to grip things any more and would just strip the screws; will have to procure a new one in the morning.

Everything looks OK visually with the cable end. Always fun to find bonus things inside your vehicle after busy busy professionals have “been in there.” In this case just a paper clip laying in one of the grooves in the column.

 

I wish I could be of more help but its been a whopping 10 years since I posted instructions...OMG. I just don't remember all the details.

 

I have the shift arm out. The clip at the bottom of the lever was not installed now, one demerit there.

Even with free access to the cable linkage, I can not get the arm controlling the key cylinder position to move. It can be seen at 2 points, circled in red in this photo.





That yellow plastic arm is in turn almost certainly controlled by the metal arm that protrudes into the shift tube from below. Seen in this pic below crude arrow graphic; it has a tab of orange grease sticking off to the right.




However it locks the plastic arm that freezes the key cylinder - that is hidden inside the core of the steering column.

 

are you implying that perhaps something else is broken?

 

Yeah, something inside the core of the column will not release. I took the little white electrical box off the bottom of the column, but that doesn’t reveal all that much. It has a metal pin which in turn sticks into two sliding arms, also made out of plastic.

So now I am looking at 3 different moving plastic pieces, each installed in the column in late 1999.

 

Are those plastic parts sold by FORD?

 

Good question but those might be too esoteric at this point. The plastic slides might be fine and just the control mechanism is jammed up somehow, dunno. I was reading those column tear down pdfs some last night but today some pages won’t load. Anything that starts with fabricating a special one use tool doesn’t seem like it will be a short procedure.

Overall I think it might be easier (less time for either me or a pro) to just get a complete or nearly complete steering column from a salvage yard and swap out the whole thing, rather than tear into it any deeper. There is a SuperDuty specialist yard 45 miles from where the truck sits; 120 miles from home. But they were closed today so don’t have a quote or availability info yet. The last Friday afternoon in August is not a good day to try and schedule or discuss anything with a commercial business. Which in my experience, don’t really want to touch high mileage stuff anyway.

I haven’t watched a couple steering column swap out videos, too tired now. But I think the process might not be too bad if no special tool etc. is called for on the steering arm connection. A certain amount of the work is already done now anyway.

 

and this wasn't happening until those other mechanics changed the shift tube and bushings?

 

No problems till yesterday; tube replaced day before that. I do suspect a new human being using the lever inappropriately was a direct cause, sure. But @ 574K miles I didn’t feel it appropriate to hold it against them, either. Could have happened to me that morning, or some future morning. And it is a moot point now. If I held their feet to the fire on this I would be looking at a 3-4 week wait at the back of their service line, for one. They have a 2 week wait just to balance and rotate tires and here I was begging for some walk-in work. I am slow to adapt to the idea that a tire shop can’t handle minor walk-in work; I think they are scheduling single tire patching now, too.

For two, I don’t trust their work anyway; they have too much of it. I used to have them do my front end work, until one time I asked them for help with a complex front axle seal that was just dangling loose. “Oh don’t worry about that, that’s just how these trucks go down the road.” At least other pros will say, sorry, too busy for rebuild work, rather than blowing smoke like that. All I asked them to do the other day was determine if my spare tire winch lock was too stripped, or if it was time to cut the cable. I figured they have done that 59,000 times, would take ten minutes, save me 45 minutes of learning about tire winches, and if necessary I could replace the winch sometime before I buy my next set of tires there after a 1,000 mile round trip delivery run I am running late on. What could go wrong?

 

I'd rather have to do a repair twice than pay someone, like most of us in this forum. But sometimes you gotta hand over the keys and pray.

​​​​​​Keep us posted on that repair.

 

Saw this thread last week. Bought a set of shifter bushings off ebay for $8. Installed new bushings this evening within 45 minutes (old bushings were toast), using little more than a 13mm deep socket and 1/4" drive #30 torx socket.
Shifter behaving lots better now, best $8 I've spent in awhile!