gear shifter in wrong place!

[jasonb]

Hey folks...
I just noticed today that my shifter doesn't align with the letter anymore. Its an automatic so when I put the shifter into say.. Reverse, the indicator lines up almost with Nuetral. It seems to drive fine but it just doesn't line up. I don't want to drive if this is something bad or could be bad. I assume it may be just a simple linkage issue or something? but I don't really know much about this stuff. Any advice is appreciated! Thanks...

 

[Byrd91]

My 91 did the exact same thing. Its not a big deal, just something in the indicator. Just let the lever go where it feels best, so it won't slip into neutral or drive.

 

[mrboyle]

The needle is run by a cable that is attached to the shifter collar. What happens is the cable either stretches or one of the guides breaks and allows the cable to (for lack of a better description) become longer. It can be repaired, but is not going to effect the tranny at all.

 

[jasonb]

thanks guys.. thats kinda what i thought mrboyle. still feels fine, just looks funny. can i fix it easily or is it something that would be expensive? if its easy i'll do it...if expensive, it can stay! thanks again!

 

[01EB5.0]

jasonb, is your truck still under warentee? if so I'd let ford go through the pain of disassembling the dash

 

[jasonb]

no its not under warranty anymore unfortunately.. i'll ask them about it when i take it in to get the spare replaced one of these days. since it seems to be merely cosmetic, i won't pay more than a few dollars to do anything about it. thanks folks..

 

[JoshC]

If this is on your 99 then good luck! I just took mine out of my 97 cause i switched to a manual tranny so i took all of my column apart to take the shifter and the indicator all out and it's not like it's hard, there are just a lot of little screws to take out and put back, but it is kinda complicated because that needle is hooked to a spring that inturn hooks to that cable with winds down around the steering column and then comes back up to the shifter. If you had about 4 hours free one day then you could do it if you felt that you could, it's not to bad though. Hope that helps!

Happy trailes!

 

[Robert]

If your '99 is like my '97, then it should only take you 5 minutes to adjust your needle. When I took my dash apart to paint it, I came across the cable that runs up to the indicator. On the cable is a small (1/2" diameter) plastic wheel. It looks similar to the cable adjusters that you would find on the caliper pull brake levers on 10 speed bicycles. I played around with it while I was under there. When I got back in the seat, I noticed that my needle no longer lined up where it was supposed to be. It then clicked what it was that I played around with. I crawled back under there and turned it a half a turn to move the needle back where it belonged. It was very easy to adjust and required no tools. I did have the bottom trim piece and metal steering column plate off at the time so I didn't look into whether or not I could have made the adjustment with them back in place. If not, they are easy to remove and would only add another 10 minutes to the job.

 

[mambomonster]

Old thread alert. This problem occurred yesterday on my 99. I was out of the country for 3 months and just have my GF crank the engine once a week while I was away. After going for a short drive, the orange needle sort of slipped about half and inch to the right. So now it is just to the right of whatever gear I'm in (P-R-N-D, etc).

Sounds like it may be a simple fix - wish it wasn't 94 degrees in Miami!