Cannot Shift Out Of Park - Options?

[Snap65]

I'm having some problems shifting out of park (TSB-07-12-9) on my 2007 XLT Sport Trac. I have a few weeks left on the drive-train warranty but the Ford dealership in town says it won't be covered. Over the phone the people at the dealership have been dicks. They told me it would take an hour to check the issue at $77/hr. Personally I would rather fix it myself because it's looking like I'm going to be charged an arm and leg. Has anybody been able to fix the issue themselves? Sometimes when I try to shift out of park the lever won't engage. Other times when I hold the brake down to shift I can hear a noise coming from the shifter that sounds like it's rapidly engaging and disengaging. When that happens I just intervene to make it stop which if I'm lucky it will engage to let me out of park. It hasn't come to the point where I have to use the manual override but I feel that day is coming. What are my options? I guess I'm going to get it diagnosed next Tuesday in order to get a quote but depending on what they tell me it's going to cost I might have to just live with manual override until I find somebody else that can do it for a reasonable price.

 

[mooshin]

You should manually disengage the solenoid so you have free ability to shift between the gears. If I am understanding the problem correctly....

 

[Snap65]

By disengage do you mean disable it? If so are there any side effects by doing that? By the way here is a video of what its doing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ektF1jXX_sc&feature=youtube_gdata_player if you look at the first 25 seconds you can see what talking about. Pay attention closely after I put it on park. You can see the rapid knocking.

 

[mooshin]

It looks like the black piece of plastic sitting in front of the solenoid is mis-alighned, it almost appears to be floating there. I expected it to only move forward and back, but it appears to have some slop and move right when when the solenoid engages.

To answer your question, the side effect would be safety. That solenoid locks out people from accidentally shifting the truck into gear. It's triggered by the pressing the brake.

 

[Snap65]

I guess if it gets really bad I'm just going to disable the soleniod. Im the only one who drives the ST so I'm not worried if that saftey mecanism is disabled. I'm just going to take my time searching for somebody that can fix it a reasonable price. Thanks for your reply.

 

[Alienman8]

If i remember the letter I got about this a year ago or so, it had something to do with the circuit board that controlled that solenoid. Unfortunately at the time i had the issue really sporadically so I didn't bother getting it fixed... (for free ) and now i have it almost every time i get in the car. The only solution that I have heard of is to remove that black piece of plastic entirely, which is what mooshin has basically suggested (although he said disengage the solenoid)

What I would really like to find out, is if there is a way to somehow rewire the solenoid (since its not whatever the brake is signal-ing since my brake lights work, and I cant image that its the wire running between the brake pedal and the solenoid, so it has to be the circuitry in the solenoid/connection to that.) or maybe replace the solenoid entirely. it seems like it is rather accessible, maybe it would be possible.

And if for some odd reason there are two sensors in the pedal (one for lights, one for shifting) I wonder if running a tap from the brake lights to the solenoid would work.

It is rather frustrating and I planned on working on a fix this summer, so if I come up with anything creative I'll let you know.

 

[ncranchero]

It's replacement is only covered under the regular vehicle warranty but here is the TSB and related parts list.
TSB 07-12-9

After watching the video I agree, the black piece seems a bit sloppy.

If you want the electrical diagnostics I can get them for you.