I'm back!

I did crawl under my truck and take a look at the linkage, and everything looks fine. All the rods are rusted up, but they move nice and smoothly, no binding or stray movement. If something was wrong, I would have expected to see some scrapings in the rust or rubbing somewhere on the body or the transmission. Nope. I even used a flashlight and my inspection mirror and it all looks pretty good. I had my sister start the truck up and run it through its gears so I could observe it in action, as well as see if the engine or transmission were moving on their mounts - nope again. The engine and tranny are solid, the linkages all look good.

I'm reading over the Service Manual now, and preparing to pull the tranny cover and check the pressure sensor and governor solenoid soon. Anything else I should check while I have the cover off? I really don't want to keep putting the cover on and off over and over again. It's a messy job.

Not sure I want to disconnect the linkage unless I really have to. I'm worried that the linkage might be too rusty - I'll give a good soak with PB and see if I can do anything with it. At least that will let me rule the actual shifter/steering column in or out.

BTW: I did check the fluid level with the tranny hot and in neutral and the level is spot-on perfect on the dipstick. Clear and clean - a perfect fluid change.

Thanks bunches, gobs, etc.