sdowney717
New CEG'er
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2005
- Messages
- 8
The little plastic bushing must have fallen out, left wife stranded at school.
I decided I hated the way FORD made this, so I made it much better and easy to do.
I used a 5/16 bolt, and 2nuts and a washer.
The shift lever unbolts, and is keyed, so take it off the trans
I ground off the swaged end with a dremel carbide cutter.
Slammed out the stud with hammer, punch and socket.
The size is perfect to pound in a 5/16 bolt, so do that. Hole grips it tightly,
(I will say I first tapped hole to 5/16 thread, but might not need tapping. I was originally thinking thread a bolt onto the lever)
The bolt type to use does not have threads running all the way to the head, that untapped bolt length needs to be covering the lever hole and part of the shift cable end.
The solid steel on the bolt grips that hole nice and tight.
Then reattach lever to trans.
Drill out the plastic end of shift cable to fit the 5/16 bolt
Grease it and slide cable end on to the bolt.
place a washer.
I double nutted, but you could use a nyloc too.
I just used what I had, cost me nothing.
so far it is a very solid repair.
I also when diagnosing the problem of it not going into gear, removed the shift knob and yanked out the OD wires accidently.
You remove a little metric screw on side of the handle and pull the shift knob up, it will come off and it is tight. Doing that risks yanking the 2 green wires off the OD switch, due to the way FORD set this up, but that is not too hard to fix.
To fix that problem, the OD switch simply pops out of the handle. Then solder on 2 new much longer wires, the wires run in front of the shifter shaft, and route them down perhaps using the same little wire hold downs OEM made into the thing, Then wire nut or tape to the existing wires. The OD switch is just a momentary toggle switch, press it and it is on, let go it is off. I used some wire off an old PC power supply.
I decided I hated the way FORD made this, so I made it much better and easy to do.
I used a 5/16 bolt, and 2nuts and a washer.
The shift lever unbolts, and is keyed, so take it off the trans
I ground off the swaged end with a dremel carbide cutter.
Slammed out the stud with hammer, punch and socket.
The size is perfect to pound in a 5/16 bolt, so do that. Hole grips it tightly,
(I will say I first tapped hole to 5/16 thread, but might not need tapping. I was originally thinking thread a bolt onto the lever)
The bolt type to use does not have threads running all the way to the head, that untapped bolt length needs to be covering the lever hole and part of the shift cable end.
The solid steel on the bolt grips that hole nice and tight.
Then reattach lever to trans.
Drill out the plastic end of shift cable to fit the 5/16 bolt
Grease it and slide cable end on to the bolt.
place a washer.
I double nutted, but you could use a nyloc too.
I just used what I had, cost me nothing.
so far it is a very solid repair.
I also when diagnosing the problem of it not going into gear, removed the shift knob and yanked out the OD wires accidently.
You remove a little metric screw on side of the handle and pull the shift knob up, it will come off and it is tight. Doing that risks yanking the 2 green wires off the OD switch, due to the way FORD set this up, but that is not too hard to fix.
To fix that problem, the OD switch simply pops out of the handle. Then solder on 2 new much longer wires, the wires run in front of the shifter shaft, and route them down perhaps using the same little wire hold downs OEM made into the thing, Then wire nut or tape to the existing wires. The OD switch is just a momentary toggle switch, press it and it is on, let go it is off. I used some wire off an old PC power supply.
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