This is a FYI thread.

I parked my 96 F Superduty with a 460/E40D/4.30 in the street, and left her there for a few weeks. This is a new to me truck. The column shifter was extremely loose, and sometimes selecting a gear was difficult. This truck has 240000 miles of plowing under its belt, and has probably been shifted between D and R a billion times. I went out to start it, and it wouldn't even turn the starter. I whipped out my old screw
​​driver and jumped the start solenoid and she took off.

Went to the parts store and grabbed a push button momentary switch to run to the start solenoid because I was just too lazy to diagnose the real problem. I pulled into my driveway, (which is sloped) and threw it in park. Shut it down and let off the brake.

Guess what? The truck started rolling down my driveway before I could open the door. Bingo, there my problem. I started to trace out the shift linkages and cable, and immediately found that the linkage coming straight out of the steering column had 2 very loose bolts. Tightened those baby's up, and bam, I've got a tight column shifter and the truck easily goes into every gear, even park, and now she starts.

So, if your old truck is high mileage, take a peek under your steering column and tighten this stuff up, it may tighten up your shifter and keep you from losing your truck down a slope and possibly killing yourself or others. Will post pictures of this when I get home and take some.

Stay safe!

 

Yep. Neutral safety switch is designed to make sure you don't start the truck in gear, and when the shifter or other parts in the column are loose it will throw the NSS out of alignment. Glad you found/solved the problem!

 

Thanks for the heads up story. We point many posters to those pesky torx bolts quite often. A dab of Loctite blue is highly suggested.

 

Yep I'd recommend some blue loctite, I hit mine with the small impact but if It happens again I'll use some