Black N Tan

Hi everyone. I am new to the forum and need some help with my newly purchase 97 F150 4x4 supercab. Truck is an automatic 5.4 motor with a tilt wheel shifter on the collum has about 125k on the odometer I am the third owner. Problem is this. When I start the truck and try to engage the shifter from park to drive or any other gear the shifter is really hard to move. Have to use some muscle to move it in to any of the forward or reverse gears. Took it to the local shop, mechanic said he thought it was the neutral safety switch going bad that it shouldn't be that hard to move the shifter through the different gears. Has anyone had this problem? Havn't had the shop do the repair yet wanted to get a heads up before I put the truck in the shop. Thanks for any help with this problem.

sander15

Mine was doing the exact same time, im not sure why but it fixed itself..
but now My Gears are messed up. Park is now Reverse, Reverse is now Nuetral, Nuetral is now 2nd, 2nd is 1st, and Past the 1st is the actually 1st gear position.. See if you can get someone to fix it or be careful using force, or it might mess yours up lol

Black N Tan

I picked up my truck(1997 ford f150 4x4 supercab v8 5.4) from the shop today. The problem I was having with my gear selector shifting hard was easily fixed with the installation of a new Neutral safety switch. This is the switch that is found on the transmission. Ford replacement part was just under 90 dollars with the labor at about 1 hour. The selector shifts as smooth as silk now. My mechanic told me if I had let it go it could have become a costly repair. With it malfunctioning I was forcing it to go into gear, that damages the steering wheel tube. Where this switch is located it's easy to see why they go bad. They are exposed to extreme conditions. Heat, rain, packed snow and mud you name it. If your shifter starts to feel as if it is resisting moving in to gear it may be this switch. I did read a few other problems that could be at fault but for my situation it was the Neutral saftey switch. The milage at the time of the repair was just over 125k. Hope this helps someone...

Black N Tan

I read a bulletin on the autozone web page about some recall and fixes for gear selector problems like you have. I registered on their site and then went to the section on the left of the home page to read all the bulletins. Hope this helps seems to describe your issues with your shifter. It also may be what was wrong with my truck. The neutral safety switch. Good luck.

Coonfoot

I have been having a hard time with this for a couple years but since I only use this truck to plow my driveway and my daughters place and use for loading firewood I have just dealt with it. Real stiff shifting column. I finally got fed up and tried changing the neutral safety switch. I wasn't sure that was gonna be the fix because it would always start in neutral and park. I had to pretty much ruin the old one getting it off because of good ole MI rust. Put a new one on from Autozone $45 bucks. It shifts like new now. I can actually hear and feel it click into all the gears. I just wanted to share this in case anyone else is experiencing this problem. Took about an hour to change and that was dealing with the old one not wanting to give up.