Your welcome.

 

Okay, I know this is an old thread, but I turned in the thumb screw and tightened the torx screws and mine is still off... quite bad. Any ideas? Maybe loosen the torx, have someone push the lever as over as they can and re-tighten while they hold it in place? Thanks

 

Well, if turning the **** both ways still isn't lining it up properly, and the bracket isn't broken... the selector itself might be damaged. Not sure how, but there's a first for everything.

 

..

 

would this piece affect the actual gear selection? mine is not going into park properly and the shifter arm is sloppy as hell.

 

That's due to a different issue. The cause of that is something not quite as common of an issue but is known about nonetheless.

If you look up under the dash, with the shifter shifted all the way down into 1, when you look under the dash you should see two bolts, but you might only see one and an empty bolt hole. it'll either be torx bolts or regular bolts (I can't remember which it is) that's holds a plate/bracket onto the end of the shifter tube mechanism.

When it's working properly and is the way it's supposed to be, there will be two bolts holding the bracket/plate on.

What causes the issue you're having, is sometimes one of the bolts manages to work it's way loose over the years of being used, and eventually falls out, which prevents the mechanism from moving the full movement and preventing you from shifting into park.

If you're lucky, you'll find the bolt laying up under inside the dash, possibly sitting on the steering column support brace. If you're able to find it, put some loctite on it and tighten it back into the bolt hole, and you should be good to go.

If you need you can look up on YouTube "ford sloppy shifter" and you should come across a bunch of videos on it. The same shifters are in the 97-03 f150s, the 99+ superduties, 97-02 expeditions, and I think maybe some of the explorers shared the same as well.

 

Ok, still learning to navigate on this site/forum. but I hope this reaches Cmanjr. you are 100% correct in your description of my problem fix. I looked a little further back and up and saw/felt the bracket that is held by the two bolts. they were both very loose and I tightened them up with a torque screwdriver. too me all of 5 minutes and VOILA! I saw your reply today on my phone and did appreciate the accurate description and fix. thanks again.

 

No problem, glad to help you with the problem so you could get it fixed!

 

If I had hair I would pull it out lol