As you know many of us have our gearshift pop out of, or won't stay, in park on automatics. Also many have looked for a replacement detent which is obsolete and no one has even one. Some have even asked for a trace of the NOS one I found 5 years ago.

Well in taking the upper part of my steering column apart for cleaning, painting and replacing the turn signal switch and detent this is what I found.

In the picture one detent is the original, one is the NOS, and then a shot of the end of the gear shift arm. Note the detents look the same and the small elongated hole for holding the gear shift in park is the same. Then look at the slightly rounded metal **** on the arm. That **** goes into the hole on the detent and pops out on me at least 95% of the time. For me the **** is the problem in that it is no longer sharp cornered at the back edge.

 

Is the detent the same for the COM and the later C6?

 

C5TZ-7A216-A .. Detent / Obsolete

1965/66 F100/250 240/300 C4 & 352 MX C-O-M.
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There is another detent for 1967/68 & 1969 before serial number D96,001 (C7TZ-7A216-A). Another for 1969 from serial number D96,001 & 1970/71 (C9TZ-7A216-A).

And...yet another for 1972/77 (D2TZ-7A216-A). 1978/79 is different again (D8TZ-7A216-B)!

 

I pulled a good cond. detent out of a 72 and it worked fine...never shifts out of park
accidentally.

 

They should've made those shift detents out of the same plastic that my kid's Legos are made out of (the stuff that I step on with my bare feet at 2 o'clock in the morning)

That stuff will NEVER wear out.

 

I solved my problem by grinding off a little bit of metal from the first ledge on the gearshift lever. Then squared up to 90 degrees the inside corner that was rounded some. This allowed the raised tip to get into the detent and sit in a little lower along with the squared corner and keeping it from popping out.