I took my 1995 F150 down the road to the gas station today and everything seemed fine. But when I pulled back into the driveway (my driveway is downhill, so I had the truck in gear with clutch in, just coasting to where I park. I went to put it in first to park the truck and it came out of gear and won't go back in. Also the shifter will move so that it looks like it will go into 5th and reverse, but it's not. It won't go into the first, second, third or fourth positions. Clutch is working fine. The truck is in neutral no matter where the shifter is, and the shifter feels really loose. I pulled the shifter out and can't see anything obviously wrong.

Any ideas? Is my transmission cooked or are the forks binding on something? I've got no idea.

 

That sounds like a shift fork has slipped over the collar it rides in and is stuck past the lip. This is usually a result of worn shift forks. Some people put their hand on the shift lever while driving and that can force the fork to ride against the collar lip wearing the fork out prematurely. Also when you are coasting in to a light or driveway, if you push the clutch in you are causing unnecessary wear on your throw out bearing. Same thing at a stop light. Go to neutral after almost stopped and let the clutch out then shift into gear when the light turns. Since you checked the lever area, I would pull the cover and see what your shift forks are doing. You will see the place where the forks ride until engaged. Before you do, you can also apply some pressure to the lever and force the fork back over the lip and into the slot sometimes if you want to try that. Then replace forks. This has been my experience with mine. Sandy

 

Here is a video showing exactly what is happening-

https://youtu.be/L-O7-aSOYso

 

That doesn't look like a shift fork issue to me. Can you pull the rubber boot up and see any issues at the shift point. Maybe a video of it. Sandy. There are shifter repair kits for about 15.00 that should fix it if it is the issue.

 

I did pull the boot up off camera and didn't see anything. Nonetheless I will make a video and post it up of the shifter itself removed. I have already replaced those shifter bushings if that is what you are referring to.

 

Yes those bushings are what I am referring to. Since you have done that, I would pull the cover and let's see if the problem is obvious,

 

That looks like the pivot pins came out of their spots where the bushing in the shifter is. Had a buddy have something similar happen... ok it was like 15 years ago and I think it was similar.

 

I would guess a fork failure of some sort. The good news is that it's pretty easy to replace a fork or even the whole assembly if needed.

The good news is that you're in neutral now, which is where you want it to be when replacing the cover/fork assembly.

 

I was thinking of your issue and remembered I have a cover from my 95 that I dropped and cracked. There is a spring loaded lever on the bottom of the cover where your shifter goes and it moves a lot as you can see from the pictures. I would bet that has something to do with your problem. Hope that is it. Simple replacement or fix

 

I agree, check the tower that comes from the top of the transmission where the shifter goes in. There are two metal pins, one on the left and one on the right. They can pop out.

I installed a shift repair kit a couple years ago. It came with the pivot pins and I installed them. They were a tiny bit smaller diameter than the existing pins, so they didn't fit tightly into their bores. It's very possible they could fall out. I used a hose clamp to wrap around the tower / pins and hold them in place.

 

Sounds exactly like what we did... haha

 

Pull the carpet and floor pan. The shifter plate will unbolt and lift up out of transmission. Something is awry in the shifter, doesn't look like fork issues. It's pretty simple to work on, luckily.

 

Well guys, I'm gonna pull the transmission out this week because I think it will be easier than pulling my interior. Once I get it on the bench and get the cover off, I'll be able to decide if I want to repair this transmission or replace it with a used ZF5. I think the ZF is a better transmission anyways, but we'll see once I get this one out and apart.

 

Well I pulled the transmission this morning . I took it out with the transfer case attached, which probably was the harder way to do it, but live and learn. I'm gonna take the top cover off tomorrow and get a look inside. I'm still leaning toward a ZF5 swap since I'm already this far.