Good morning everyone! I am in search of some Borg-Warner T18 experts.

I keep running into an irritating issue with the T18 in my 1974 F250. Every so often, I go to put the truck in reverse, and the shaft at the bottom of the gear selector pops out of the shift gate. I then have to take the gear selector out and push the reverse rail back to neutral with a flathead screwdriver. I am not knowledgeable whatsoever when it comes to transmissions, but it seems to me that the shift rail that is responsible for reverse is binding for some reason, which in turn pops the gear selector shaft out. I believe this is the case because sometimes it is extremely difficult to get that rail back to neutral (in line with the other gates). It moves forward & backward easily enough, it just does not want to return all the way back to neutral. Usually, with some patience, I am able to get it back to neutral.

Anyways, I hope I have explained this issue well enough for someone to chime in. I have looked at other posts using the search function on this site, but I have not been able to find a post that provides the cure for my situation!

Thanks to anyone who can help in advance!

EDIT:
Update! When I wrote this post this AM, the truck was sitting in my driveway with the reverse gate stuck - as mentioned above (I could move it forward, but would not return all the way back to neutral). I discovered that if I used the flathead screwdriver to not only pull the reverse gate back but also inwards (towards the middle of the truck) at the same time, the gate would actually return to all the way to neutral.

I imagine these shift rails/gates are not supposed to have any play/slop in them? Is this what could be causing my problem?