removed gauge cluster...gear selector stopped working!

[Ranger379]

hey guys and merry x-mas. working on my moms explorer, bought a bunch of stuff for her truck for x-mas. 4 out of 6 dash bulbs were burned out, so i took the gauge cluster out, replaced them, and went to put the gear selector back in and tried it out before it put it all back together and it DIDNT WORK! uuughhh. i messed around with it and it will sometimes move a little bit but not all the to the correct gear. ill work on some of the other stuff until someone chimes in and give me an idea of what would have went wrong. any help is always much appreciated!

didnt know what sub forum to put this is, so i just put it in here in the stock 95-01

 

[Blueraven]

The gear selector is pretty simple. There's a wire with loop connected to the shifter then feeds down and hooks over a small white plastic assembly that has a "thumb" wheel that allows you to adjust where the selector is pointing.

If the selector was fine before you pulled the gauge assembly and the selector moves now a bit when you move the shifter, my guess is when you put the gauge assembly back in you pushed some wiring or something onto the shifter indicator wire. Pull the gauge back out and look down in the center of the opening and you should see the white assembly. Make any adjustments to the surrounding wiring and you should be fine.

If you didn't move the adjusting wheel then it should be as it was before.

If you need to adjust it, after you see where it is and know it moves, you can reach under the dash (with bottom plate removed) and spin the thumb wheel without seeing it.



Blueraven

 

[mr2fix2it]

sounds like the cable got kinked or broken the thumb wheel bracket breaks easily and its possible that is what happened

 

[Ranger379]

thanks for the suggestions, i was just out working on it, finished wiring the stereo up, and yep, the adjuster broke, the threaded part that goes into the wheel snapped, dam this cold weather, i broke a vaccum line under the hood yesterday too haha. well i guess ill have to get on at the junk yard. thanks for help!

 

[Blueraven]

If you get a chance, get two. I had one broken and then broke the replacement one and had to go back and get a second one.

Murphy's law is that if you get two you will fix it with one and the second one will sit in the tool box until the day you see it and say "what the hell is that" and then you will throw it away.

Blueraven