How to Fix a Loose Column Shifter - YouTube

Hey guys ChrisFix here today

I'm going to show you how to fix a shifter that [doesn't] really shift into correct gear like right now. It's saying it's in reverse

and

Really? It's [in] neutral and this just feels really sloppy. There's a lot of play a

whole lot [of] play

And then sometimes when you put it in Park

It's really not in park you go to try to start the car again

And it won't even start that's because it's not in park, and you can see even just in park

There's a lot of play in this this is typical on Ford vehicles right now

I'm in a (1995) Ford Windstar, and I'll show you why it's doing this it's an easy free fix

So we're going to look under the steering wheel we don't have to take anything apart

Just find your brake pedal and go under here now. Here is your brake pedal you're going to follow the brake pedal up

Until you get to the steering column you can see if I move the steering wheel this moves

So then we want to look behind this

And kind of up [to] the side

And you can see right [here] these two bolts that have the torques ends on them. I'm going to touch the gear lever

and you [can] see that's what moves so that you're at the right location and what happens is these two bolts back out and

Loosen up, so if I put my hand back here, and I kind of just wiggle this around a little bit

You can see how they're both loose

And it allows a lot [of] slop in here a lot of play and that play gets transferred into this

which then goes to your

transmission and shifts the gears so easy fix [all] we have to do is tighten these up I'm actually going to take them out and

Put the Red locker on them

We'll do one at a time and the thread locker will ensure [that] they don't get loose again

So we're going to look at the engine here

And just look at the shifter to make sure it's not loose on this end as well

You can see the transmission right there, and there's where the shifter is

And that looks really smooth and solid there's not much play. We're also going to come around from this side and check this side

And again, there's not much play, so that's good. [you] always want to check [that] just in case

It's all you need is some threadlocker and a size 30 torques on this

So we're going to take off one at a time

Then all we do is just add a little bit of this

Removable [loctite] and this will just prevent vibrations from loosening up the bolt. We only do one at a time

So that this is really [easy] to align

Make sure it's nice and snug

You don't have to go crazy tightening this but you definitely want to snug it up good, and then we'll take this other one off

I will do the same thing for this one. Just a little bit of threadlocker right on the end here

Go back in here and hand tighten it

And then finish tightening it with [this] size 30 torques

Okay, now let's give it a shot and see how it feels

okay, [ah]

Yeah

That feels real [good] now, I could actually feel the gear

nice and smooth

There's not much play at all

And it clicks right into the gear compared to before where it I?

Had no clue what gear I was in and it was just a mess and you can see there's not much movement in here

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