1997 Explorer 5.0L won't go into Park!

Everything was working fine until one day I fired er' up went forward about 15 feet then backed up another 15 feet and it wouldn't shift back into park. I have about 225k miles all the gears work fine. It will still drive. Just have no clue what it could be. I am really leaning toward the steering column/shifter cause it doesn't feel the same now. Open for any suggestions, I'm gonna have to do this myself so any tips/tricks would be much appreciated!

First place to check would be on the tranny where the shift linkage is. There should be a little white clip holding it in place so that when you shift it doesn't adjust. Make sure that is there and secure. Also make sure the ball-stud is still attached firmly. Is it not shifting into any other gears now or JUST not park? If that doesn't work then you might have to take apart the steering column and look around in there. Also is your exploder throwing any OBD codes?

I'm not on these forums often however its funny you bring this up. My father has a 2000 and for the past year he's been fighting this. Only in Park! Sometimes it'll pop right in but most of the time he's fighting it.

Anyways... It was the shifter on the column. He just fixed it on Friday. His shifter has been rather floppy and there are 2 screws behind the dash which were loose. He said he was able to tighten them a full turn.. once he was able to reach them. He didn't have to disassemble the column. This tightened up the shifter and it pops right into Park now.

I don't know exactly what screws he tightened only that he said they were behind the cluster and on the column. Hope this helps.

Yeah mine just wont go into park. I'll have to give those a try today and see what I can come up with.

Good luck! Let me know what happens.

wedge yourself underneath and check the two bolts like the ones in this picture thay are a t-30 torx and are very common for them to come loose

here is the link to the thread with some info mine used to come loose all the time so i dabbed a lil blue loctite and its been almost a year now

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=228608

that sux ur x wont go into park