96 XLT, weird transmission issue. Please help!!

[delorean]

Ok so after searching these forums I have seen similar issues regarding problems using reverse gear on older Explorers.

I think mine has a similar issue but it's very strange (I'm also pinning my hopes on it not needing a transmission rebuild). I hope someone here can help me out!

The car drives fine, all gears work, even reverse.

BUT.

Sometimes (now happening more often than not recently), if I put the car in reverse gear, it either:

a) Refuses to reverse at all, or

b) Will reverse very VERY slowly but only with me planting my foot to the floor on the accelerator revving for all my lifer and eventually it crawls backwards.

BUT (part 2).

The car park outside my house is on a little bit of a gradient, a very slight one at that.

If I park the flatter side of the car park it never appears to have the reverse issue. But if I am on the gradient (which I am now) it always seems to happen there.

Currently I cannot move my car and am a bit scared of the costs that may lay ahead of me, not to mention towing costs.

Can anyone help? Any ideas of what might be wrong?

Thanks for your help in advance!

NOTE: I have a 1996 Explorer XLT 4.0l V6, I believe it's an SOHC engine.

NOTE 2: If this helps, the marker on the dashboard cluster that points to what gear I am in is a little off sync (i.e. It doesn't completely line up between R, N and D).

 

[delorean]

UPDATE:

I managed to get it to reverse up the gradient just now. I wiggled the gear shift around a bit, swapped gears and tried to get it to sink in to reverse.

Nothing worked so far.

Thing is, when you do put the shifter in to reverse it does sound like it has found the gear, it just won't reverse.

Anyway, on this occasion what I did was turned the steering wheel all the way to the left and tried accelerating, I found it not move but the hood lifted up as if it wanted to go but was stuck and nothing happened.

So I turned the wheel all the way to the right, did the same. Same result.

I repeated it switching from left to right trying the same thing a couple more times and found the more I did it the more it wanted to try and reverse but the car would not move.

Did it a few times and with each turn it kind of wiggled it's way up the gradient, when it did move the car stuttered a little as though it was a chore to get up the (very slight) gradient.

Eventually I was home free, happy days!

I put the car now on the other side of the car park, tried reversing a few times and have had no problems since, back to square one.

What do you guys recommend? I'm hoping it's not a rebuild or anything super pricey at all costs.

By the way, when I am driving normally, gear changes are very smooth. No leaps, stutters or issues accelerating. It all acts normal. Same with reverse. It's just if it has to reverse up a gradient I guess it just won't find the gear or gets stuck? I dunno. ARGH!