I cant figure this out, ford doesnt know what it is either. I need this fixed heres the problem

my 94 explorer starts up just fine. But sometimes, only sometimes, while the truck is ideling in park or neutral the starter will engage on its own.

Also, say I pull up to the gas station and go from Drive to park with the shift lever. as it hits park the starter will engage.

And say I started the vehicle and im going from park to drive. as I pass neutral you hear this "ching" cause the starter tried to engage.

Now every time that it does this I can only make it stop by turing off the vehicle or switching out of park or neutral.

I have replaced the starter relay, ignigion switch. negative battery cable.

The weird thing is that it only does it when the vehicle is running. I can put the key in the run position and sit there all day and move the shifter from park to drive a thousand times and it nevers engages

PLEASE HELP I dont know what to do

Ryan

 

How close is the shift linkage to the starter? Or, is there anything that could be rubbing against it as the engine moves under the torque of gear engagement?

 

Sounds like the ignition switch is not coming out of the start position, so when the lever position sensor hits park or neutral, it hits the starter. I would look somewhere in the steering column first, it sounds as if your problem may lie there.

 

I agree with EPN* look at whats going on with your ignition switch. The linkage might be binding or the whole switch itself may need to be slid forward/reverse on the column .

 

I'm thinking possibly Neutral Safety Switch. If it only happens when passing through neutral, and the switch is what prevents you from starting in drive, maybe somehow it's activating the starter/ignition switch via some kind of short??? I'm really not the most fluent on automatics and their setup, but for some reason that's what's sticking out to me.