I was working on the selector cable in my truck. Has a break in it. Will do a repair write up when I get it finished. I was testing it out before final assembly(super glue) to make sure it wasn't missing any length in the guide tube and realized I was missing a gear. In my defense it was a long rough day with many set backs, but here's what happened.

I decided it was in the column somewhere as the transmission moved though all the gears. I fought the column back out and pretty well quit for the night. I checked with Bill to make sure the shift collar I swapped in wasn't the issue and he said it's the same part for both applications so good there. I planned on pulling the wheel to make sure there wasn't an issue with the detent in the shift collar. Because if nothing there I was going to have to pull the tube apart. Well before I started in today I went back to the transmission to double check my work. I'm missing a gear. It's park actually. Now there's no fluid in the trans right now, I dropped the pan and replaced the filter a while back while I was putting a new shaft seal in. Haven't refilled as I don't have the radiator on yet. I'm thinking I didn't get everything lined up right when I put it back together. From the top detent position, one down is neutral. Which is how I decided I'm missing park. I assume the lever should detent in park but honestly have no Idea. when I drop it down into first there is a little spring play just passed it, but not much. Where as above reverse there is a lot of spring loaded movement, like it's trying to hit park but can't quite move enough. Anyone know for sure if the selector pin is off one notch or something? I'm going to pull the pan today and drop the valve body again and see, but I have several things to do that I will start on first in the hopes one of you can tell me that the issue is something simple somewhere else.

Also, does anyone have a picture of the kickdown return spring, C6 300 6, single barrel carter. Not sure if mine was gone or if I misplaced it. I assume it's small and fairly lite-weight.

 

I have rebuilt my trans once and am definitely not qualified to give advice, so take what I say with a grain of salt. With that being said.

When you shift into park, there is a long rod going back to the parking gear. It has a cone on the end which pushes the parking claw into the gear. If your parking gear and claw are lined up in a really stupid place, It will not be able to put it in park and just bind the rod, flexing it. That is what happened to me when I put my C6 back in. I just rotated the trans with the driveshaft a little bit and it went into park. If that is the case for you that would explain why it is not able to move enough.

As I said. That was the case for me, don't know if it is for you. Just an Idea.

About having the detent off a position, I do not remember exactly how it went cause it has been a hot minute since I was in there, but isin't the everything just tied together? I don't know how you would be able to have it off a notch.

 

Take the linkage off the side of the trans and move the lever on the side of the trans by hand. You can turn the rear driveshaft by hand if the rearend is up in the air, and it should stop if you get it in park. If that works you know it's in the linkage adjustment or the steering column.

Be warned the keyswitch and the shifter are interlocked together. Safety feature to keep someone from grabbing the key and turning it off and locking the steering wheel while you are driving down the road. The little white button under the column on the manual trans trucks is for the same reason, you have push that button to get the key back into off where it locks the steering wheel.

 

^^^
You are totally right, I forgot about that. Start at the trans and work up from there. Took me a while to get the shift linkage all adjusted and shifting right.

 

All that makes sense. With any luck that's all it is. Thanks guys, gives me a faint glimmer of hope, really don't want to pull the valve body again.

 

Pulling the valve body with the transmission in the truck is garbage. I put the shift lever in upside down and had to do what felt like open heart surgery to flip it. It is really unnerving, having the valve body open under a dirty, rusty truck.

 

I was pretty careful when I was in there. I read all that I could before hand. Didn't want to pull it, but it was in the way. Took a couple of tries to put it back together, very frustrating and no room to work.

 

Kramer, try PMing Mark Kovalasky. He was a transmission engineer at Ford, but is most active on the 87-96 forum.

 

I will for sure get in touch with him. I have several questions I haven't been able to get answered from the transmission guys on here. I had the truck blocked up in front for the frontend swap, so I haven't tried spinning the drive shaft yet. Spent the day yesterday getting the front end swapped, put a hurting on my, I pretty well slept all day today. Getting ready to go out and try spinning the shaft now that the truck is back on the ground. Think it will be easiest to drop the rear of the shaft again.

 

Corrected your spelling, had to do some member list scrolling to find him lol I just messaged him because I'm at a complete loss. Just tried the drive shaft spinning trick, sounds and feels like the park pin snaps into place in the top slot(where park should be) where I thought reverse was. I know I dropped it down one when I decided I was in neutral, because I could easily roll the truck from underneath pushing the tire with my foot. The truck rolls super easy by hand, or at least it did before I swapped the seize front end from the donor truck in. Still got to go over the brakes to see which truck has the nicest rotors and what not. Will free them up then, but until then, no hand pushes. If that is park, maybe I do have something misaligned as there is a bit of slop at the top, but it pretty well bottoms out at the bottom. But I still have no idea what gear I am missing.

 

I found it! I confirmed it wouldn't go into first when I dropped the pan. Dunno where it was, but I found it. Pulled the valve body back out and put it back in. Only think I can think of was something in there was binding, maybe the kickdown lever? Doesn't make any sense to me. Can only go in one way, the kickdown has some wiggle room, but don't see how it could get in the way. I know the selector shaft was in right because you could select gears and it would detent. So, no clue what happened. If this happens to someone else, just take it back apart and put it back again.

 

Nature of the beast I would say. With all those linkages, rods , and pivots the odds of something binding are pretty good.
I am guessing it might have had something to do with the linkage piece that goes into the valve body. Who knows tho
I am glad you got it working again!

 

Couldn't have been the shift linkage as it goes into a slot in the rod in the valve body. I figure if you missed and had it outside the rod that would keep it from going all the way down, but you'd know if that was it because it wouldn't detent in either direction. I wish I knew exactly what was binding so the next guy reading this would know exactly what he did wrong. Out of all the hits I got on google, one guy had a raise burr on the outside of the transmission keeping him from shifting into first. One guy said it's impossible to not be able to shift into first manually. Evening looking at diagrams it's hard to see what would. The only thing there is the kickdown lever, so I'm guessing it was out of position, just don't know how or which way. I can say for sure that after you put the valve body in, manually shift the lever through all positions and count them to make sure it works before you put the pan on. That'll save you from having to do it again and risk contamination.

 

The "take it apart and put it back together" trick works a lot. Just like the "unplug it and plug it back in" trick. A large part of being a mechanic is being persistent and stubborn and not giving up.

 

I think this was more of an exercise in being thorough. For sure going to verify function the next time I'm in something before I button it back up.