About a week ago I was on my way home from work and stopped off at a convenience store to grab a few things. When I came back out I turned the key and nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada... It had started fine 5 minutes previously, so I knew the battery was fine. After some fiddling around I got around to trying it in Neutral, and it fired right up. Drove 45 minutes home with no noticeable problems.

Thank god that parking lot at the gas station was level, because when I got home I shifted into Park, shut it down, and as soon as I took my foot off the brake it started to roll.

Basically, the shift lever and indicator all function as normal, except that when the lever is in the Park position, the tranny is still stuck in reverse.

I recently did the blower fan/heater core swap, which involves dropping the steering column and dismantling the dash, so it's not entirely out of the question that the linkage cable is out of whack.

Google tells me it could also be the front band anchor.

Just for clarity, I know all about the **** under the steering column that adjusts the indicator needle. That's not the issue. The indicator is spot on in every gear, except Park. If I go for a drive, everything seems normal. It still shifts through all gears, at the right time, and no harder or softer than usual. The one and only problem is that when you go to shift into Park, the tranny gets to Reverse and stays there. (Dash indicator does go all the way to Park, though.)

Anyone ever had this issue happen? Just how much of a headache am I looking at here? This truck is no longer worth putting much cash into, but we do need 2 vehicles and a vehicle purchase isn't in the cards for at least a few more months.

Any ideas, tips, experiences appreciated....

 

I would start by crawling under it and pulling of the shift linkage cable and see if you can manually move it into park. I you can then you know its either in the cable or the column. If you can't manually get it into park its something internal, most likely something with the park rod.