97 E-350 Transmission Shift Cable
 

New guy here, I have searched through the forum but didn't see anything about replacing the shift cable on an E-350. Has anybody done this? The cable on my van is stretched enough that I can no longer adjust it to hit park correctly and the wife is getting tired of trying to get it in park. This is her daily driver (she uses it for our daycare) and I need to get this changed. How hard is it to get off of the linkage at the steering column? I will hopefully be changing it tomorrow and be able to give some feed back on it.

I've never heard of a shift cable stretching. You may have the first one.

Before changing it try looking under the steering column. There are two Torx head bolts that hold the shift tube to the column. If they work loose you'll get the symptoms your van has.

I replaced the shifter cable on my '97 because it stretched and finally was cut inside the housing. There is a procedure for adjustment in the Service Book.

The cable is similar to the bicycle's brake or gear cable.

fixed it
 

Got the cable changed, it took about an hour and was a major pain. The old cable outer housing was broken about 6-8" from the firewall and I believe this is where the stretch came in to play. If anybody would like to know how to do the change let me know & I can do a write up.

That's where mine was broken too. Maybe engine heat weakens the bend there. Sure any How-to would be great. I did mine before I joined this forum.

As Henry says any write up on a how-to is always helpful---never know when one of us will be next with the same or a similar problem.