Hi all,

I ran into an issue with my 1996 F150 last night.

After pulling into my driveway, I placed the shifter column in Park and the starter engaged. Whenever I place the shifter column in Park or Neutral, the starter would engage. If the shifter column was placed in Reverse, Drive, 1, or 2, the starter would disengage. This occurred while the vehicle was running and with the key in the off position.

To get everything to stop, I pulled the coil plug from the distributer cap and disconnected the negative battery cable. When I reconnected these, everything worked correctly.

Any thoughts to what would cause this?

I've read other threads that this could be the starter, starter relay, ignition coil, or even the starter safety switch. Any recommendations on what I should replace first?

Thanks

 

It sounds like a short in the ignition switch. That's the white box bolted to the bottom of the column about 1/2 way down.

 

Thanks for the quick response and the pic. I purchased an ignition switch from my local auto parts store last night and am hoping to find time tonight to install. I will report back the results.

 

Replacing the ignition switch appears to have corrected the problem. Extremely easy to install, took around 10 minutes.

Thanks again.