Reverse lights come on only between park and reverse, adjust shift cable?

[grande1972]

So as the title states, my reverse lights come on only between park and reverse. Once the shifter drops into reverse, the lights go out on my '96 ranger with an automatic. After an extensive (and I mean hours) web search, I've come up with nothing. I seriously feel like I'm the only guy whose reverse lights are doing this. I've posted this on a couple of Ranger specific forums with ZERO replies with the exception of one guy saying "adjust the transmission Electrical switch thingy." my transmission selector on the dash is correct, when the selector is on "P" it's in park, when on "R" it drops into reverse and so forth. If I am suposed to adjust the transmission cable, how do I do this (and I mean the poor mans way, no counterweights or digital guage this and that's). I see where the cable goes into an oval plastic part held by a bracket on the transmission which then has a rod coming out of the rear of this round black plastic part with a ball joint/clevis at the rear of it which then goes into the neutral safety switch. sorry this was so lengthy, but I'm trying to give as much detail because I'm seriously at the end of my rope here, I can't find anything on the Internet and nobody seems to have an answer to my problem.