I'm having trouble adjusting the linkage on my 86 Bird. When I shift the transmission from underneath the car to the full clockwise position, there are only 4 detent positions to full counter clockwise. The haynes book say's to put the shifter in Drive, shift the tranny to the second detent, tighten linkage at that position. I've done this and the shifter wont go into park! I have tried to adjust it in every possible way I can with no luck. Can someone tell me what's going on? It all worked fine before it had to unbolted from the frame for an engine swap.
Did you try rotating the driveshaft a bit to get the internal "parking" gear to line up with the pawl? Maybe that's your missing 5th spot.
Technically, page 202, section 5, says:
"[COLOR="Red"]which is the second detent position
from the full clockwise position.[/COLOR]"
I would assume that means the 3rd actual notch...
P(5) - R(4) - N(3) - D(2) - 2(1) - 1(0)
i always pull the shifter down in low, and then pull the trans arm down in low.
should get the adjustment real real close.
Been there done that! But thank's alot any way. I'm going to mess with it again tommorrow, so I'll get back to you.( Can't wait for carbed V8 & 5spd!!!)
if you get it working but the indicator is off, adjust the white band that is wrapped around your steering column. Remove the lower cover and you'll see the white plastic band im talking about. It has a cable in it that leads up to the cluster and it is in control of where you "visually see" PRNDXX"
If that white band is broken a hose clamp works wonders to keep it in place.
No luck yet! With the shifter in park, but the linkage disconnected from the trans. I can shift the trans. from underneath the car into 1-2-D-N-R, and that's it! Reverse lights are on and it won't start. Shift the trans. one position counterclockwise to N, engine will start. It will go into every gear fine from 1-R, but will not go into park. It never had any problems before the engine swap and nothing was touched on the trans. except the filter. It's just been sitting on jackstands in neutral for about a year ( with a LOCKED up 3.8 ).
O.K. here it is, a month later and I still can't get the tranny in park. So I pulled the car out of the garage for the first time anyway. Everything seemed to be fine for the first 5 minutes!!! After backing up & pulling foward a couple of times, the tranny now refuses to go into any gear except 1-2. No P-R-N-D. Still, with the linkage disconnected, I can't manually shift the trans. past 1-2. If the trans. has to be torn apart to fix it, I might as well spring for a rebuild,but that wasn't quite in the budget plan at the present time.Or if I have to go for another used trans. it's going to be alot easier to find an AOD than a C-5 in my area,so is there any problems installing an AOD?
I FOUND IT!!! I dropped the pan again and removed the valve body and found the kickdown lever in two pieces. It was jamming up the shift linkage on the inside of the trans. replaced it with one from a s pile and solved the problem. After putting it all back together, suddenly the trans. was slipping something terriable.(my kind of luck!) Turned out to be the modulator valve. It's back on the road again!! Thank's for all the help guy's.