Ford Truck and SUV Column Shifter Falling Down How to Replace the Column Shifter Tube

Would you happen to have a Ford with a shifter on the column that does this? If you do, you wanna watch this video. So this is what we call a Ford shifter tube. It sits inside the steering column on the inside. And right here, this notch is where this lever sits. And inside there is what they call the plunger. So, that lines up with that on the inside, spring-loaded on the bottom here, so that when we do the job, you'll see there's a spring that goes right here, the steel plate mounts here, and that has the actual indicator cable on it, and also the shifter cable. So that's why it's spring-loaded. It's nice and firm up on the top always up here is because of this spring.

What happens is a lot of people have a tendency of using the shifter as the brake. Yeah, old school used to always put a car in park sometimes while you're still rolling. Not a good thing to do. Back in the day with steel column, never even knew about it, unless you broke the pin inside the transmission. But, then they replaced the steel tubes or column shaft with an aluminum one. And what happens is it snaps, either the damper inside here, this plunger snaps, the spring breaks, so it kind of has a wobble to it, but it still will shift fine or if this tube cracks, it's over. That's what you get right there, you get this lovely drop. Now, you can't shift it, stuck in whatever gear you were in, whether you're neutral, drive, reverse, or park, it's broken, it's there. You could get down and use the cable mechanically and shift it if you wanted to. But if you could shift that and get back in and put the brake on and take off, call me because I really wanna meet you. So enough with the jibber-jabber, let's get to it and tear this thing apart.

So, first thing we're gonna do is remove this plastic kick knee, kick panel, and it's a flathead screwdriver, and just turn it counterclockwise. There's four of them, there you go. First thing I like to do is go underneath here of the dash. And this is your shifter cable. And this is that metal piece I was talking about that's mounted to the bottom of that tube. I take a flathead screwdriver, and I'm gonna pop that right off. And then I'm gonna bring it right down here. And on the other side of this bracket, see if you can see that. See that plastic right in there? On this side of it, see that plastic tab? We have to release that tab. There's a little tab inside that's holding that. Just gonna pop that off. Just pop it out like that, magically use your third arm. So with two hands, you're gonna pop that tab off, pull that shifter cable towards the firewall. Easier said than done. There we go. It's easy once you get the tab out of the way. Hopefully, you don't have all these extra lovely wires that are for a plow.

So here we have the steering shaft that goes up to the steering box right here. And there's a 10-millimeter socket. It's actually 8-millimeter bolt but it's 10-millimeter socket. You're gonna loosen this up. The good news about this is that it's notched. So it can only go in one way. I like to straighten the steering wheel out before I take this out. And secondly, you don't wanna spin your steering wheel. You want the key out and the steering wheel locked. So, let's confirm that this is gonna get locked into place. And the reason for that is because you have your clock spring in there. And if you undo that system and column this thing wants to spend. And if it spins one and a half turns to one to three quarters, when it gets to one to three quarters, it's gonna rip that clock spring. Then we went from an easy job to a miserable job. So because our steering wheel will not lock. If yours does perfect. Make sure it's locked. I'm just gonna tape it. Just run some quick masking tape. Now, if you've got stronger tape, then go ahead and use it. A couple of three, little pieces of tape here. At least it will give me notice if I'm not around and I hear it starting to spin. I'm gonna take this bolt out. Should have some like thread lock on it. That's why it's not a free willing bolt. And we're gonna reapply thread lock when we put this in. The last thing you want is the look on your face when you're going down the road and you have no steering because the shaft fell down into the floor.

Now you can just take this and wobble it, it'll bring it down enough so you can unbolt it, everything will pull right out of the spot. See how it automatically wants to spin while the tape thing goodness is stopping it? Because you do not want that to spin. So now this is the cable. That's the indicator for your shifter. So it's spring-loaded. I'm just gonna bring right up here and undo it on the hook, bingo. I think it's 5.5. This little, little socket right here. Look at that. Not that I've done more than one. Pop that little plastic right off. Set her aside. We already disconnected the negative battery cable. And we waited good 15 minutes before we came in here, because you have to disconnect the airbag. And you never wanna do anything electrical without the battery, negative side disconnected, squeeze the tab, pull it up.

So I got a 7-millimeter socket, and it worked just fine. So we're gonna unplug this black connector from the ignition switch. Okay. So, now once that screw is pulled all the way up. There you go. Thirteen-millimeter deep socket, we're gonna take. gonna loosen those two front ones up. Other side. Okay. Get yourself out of the way. So now that I've got it sitting here, it's resting, we still have one more thing to disconnect. And that is the combination switch, the harness on this. But, now that it's all dropped down, wait till you see how easy this plastic column covers come off. So Philips screwdriver. We do have a tilt steering wheel. If you have a tilt, just grab it firmly, counterclockwise, spin that out of the way. If you don't, I'll show you this little notch on there that Ford was kind enough to put in. You can use an adjustable pair of pliers on it right here, and you can break it free.

Now we're gonna take that plastic cover off, Philips screwdriver. So there's three, total. There's one, two, and three. Pay no attention to this one. That's a different problem. Pull that right down. Now that my tape's, lovely, holding there doing nothing, you need a Torx bit and it's a T20. And just pull those little brass screws right out, they're short too. So it's easy peasy. Now you have access to this harness a lot easier. Top one is just gonna be a tab, we're gonna push down on that tab. Now you see the inner tab, I can spin it. Now get the combination switch right out of my way. Now the harness has to get that out. There's also going to be a connector over here on the actual shifter tube. The connector goes is right here though. Just like that. Now, this harness is ready to go through.

So on the F-250, and probably 350, this fuse panel has to come out. So, 10-millimeter socket.

Look how that's broken. So you'll see why in a minute when I get this out, why it's kind of a nightmare. It's more of a nightmare because somebody put a plow on this. It's all these plow wires. So now you're gonna put your ignition key in the cylinder. Pick the correct one because it's been changed. And you're gonna turn it like you're turning the ignition on and push this button. There's a little hole right in there, little pin, push that pin in, and then pull this ignition switch out. Now you can take the rest of that cover off. Oh, isn't that pretty? Spin it around. See what we're working with now.

All right, here we go. There it is. There's the bracket. This is where the shifter indicator cable hooks onto. This is where the shifter cable hooks onto. And right inside here, there's a spring. I'm gonna show you all of it. So what I'm gonna do next is push on that little tab right there, and over here, it's just pry it on a typical thing that Ford supplies. Where did that screwdriver go? Just take a flathead screwdriver. Oh, it was so scared it jumped off. Okay, here we go, I have a T30. We're gonna do, let me see, I'm gonna loosen this one up, take that one out, oh, oh, oh, no.

Sometimes you just loosen up. Look that. So now you just pull this broken one out. So, in order to put the solid one in, we're gonna just loosen this top one. So now we have to take these pieces off here to access that spring, and the shifter pin. If the spring is broken or collapsed, I strongly recommend replacing it, but that one looks okay. So now we have to take a hammer and tap that up. So I just put a socket there to give it some depth because that pin is pretty long and just tap it like that. Has knurls on that end, and that's the end that you're gonna replace, put in. You just go grab a pair of pliers and pull that pin the rest of the way out. There we go. Can only go back the way like that. It's gonna go back this way.

So before I put the plunger into the steering tube, I load it up with new caliper grease, white lithium grease, not the spray, but if you have a bucket of it, if you have thin grease, loose grease around, you can use that. You just want this plunger to move smoothly in and out. So now we're gonna grab the new tube, put the plunger in. You want the point on the side that the spring's gonna be on, you can take your selector. I have to get the hammer and tap that a little bit. There you go. So ears, these are the ears I'm talking about, facing down, facing down. You want the knurl part to be on the top. So the pin must go this way through. If you put it this way, you're gonna get from park to reverse. And that's as far as you're gonna get. Because the pin is gonna be sticking up and it's gonna hit this bracket. So that's the only thing I can say that you really have to pay attention to. Well, you have to pay attention to all of it. But that's the most important part is that piece right there. And if you get confused, you're like, "Oh, I don't know." Look at your old piece and you see where that knurl lined up right inside there.

So now it's just gonna come back over to my little design. Just want it to be level. I'm gonna add some grease to where the spring goes. Slide that right in there, and I'm gonna get my bracket. And you can see how it lines up. So it's gonna go in just like that. If you want to put a couple of drops of like a blue or green thread lock on that, highly recommended, because these aluminum, for some reason they vibrate, and the steel bolts will slide right out of the aluminum casing. So now we're gonna take the actual shifter handle end out. Just take this pin. It has a little clip on it. You can usually push it with your thumb. If you can't, you can just tap it with a hammer and pull it off the rest of the way. Take your shifter out. You're gonna need this damper. It's a little rubber piece. So you can pop the clips off. There we go. We are done with that.

So now we'll take our new one. So let's think about how this is gonna go. So you want this rubber piece on the bottom facing your feet as if that shifter was in the actual steering column. There you go. Push that right in there, you're gonna take your shifter handle and align that center part up. So I haven't tightened this in for a reason, because I wanna be able to work with this. So you're gonna slide that right in until the pinhole lines up. Let's take a little screwdriver. Perfect. Put the pin facing down. Just like that. So we're gonna go over to our press and tap that in. Made some noise. Take our T30 and tighten this up. Whenever you're dealing with aluminum, it's always a good practice to equal out the pressure. You never wanna... The aluminum will just snap.

So, I like to put a little bit of grease or silicone paste with a plastic guide, right, only because these bushings I've seen them like all plastic shavings in there. And that's not what we want. So let's slide this back through, and that's going to line right up with that, and that with that, as you can see, there's a good little peek at what goes underneath. So this is park, reverse, neutral, drive, drive-one. So that's how it shifts when your shift. You see that? Kinda cool. So we're gonna put this bolt right in, get this solenoid mounting, set it out, and put the cup of this bottom bracket on, put a little bit of grease inside there. Do the same to the top bracket.

That's it. So now you can see how it works. Step on the brake, electricity goes to this, pushes the plunger in, ding, and you can shift. So a good way to do is make sure you do a nice dry run. Because if you weren't watching or paying attention and you put this pin in the long way that way, you get to right here, and it would have stopped, because the pin will hit the actual shaft inside, you can't get it all the way around. So the pin on this end always has to go up. Nice. And that's ready to go. Let's put this boot back on. So, bring around, this little dab goes right there, and then this slides right into the slot on the side. Like that. So I'm just gonna put this cover on. So I put the ignition switch back in. And then we can put the combination switch on again inside. Let's put the switch in.

So line up that pin with the slot that has the pinhole, it pops right in, and you are done. So here we go. So the key to this is once again to fish it in there, this harness is your combination switch. So I'm gonna get this bracket in then this one. So kind of do an angle and make sure that steering wheel does not turn 360. If you can see the studs straight back there, right here, one over there, that's why that bracket is nicely notched out just like that. So I'm gonna put this on up first. Just a couple of turns. Don't make it too narrow for yourself. As it is, it's difficult to get this up in there. Washers up. There you go. All right. There you go. That's the most difficult side I was over there. So now that I've got the back bracket resting on those two mounting nuts, I'm gonna put the combination switch back in and that's real simple. Plug in this solenoid switch. Make sure your wire's on the other side of this pin.

So now I'm just gonna get my combination switch ready, vertical one, horizontal one. It'll just lovely sit right there. Now we get out torques. Those little gold ones, two small gold ones, get that bottom one started, and we'll tighten it up. All right. So now we're gonna put the other two nuts in the front here. And if you can get your head underneath there at the same time, you're gonna make sure you have no wires on the top of this column being pinched or crammed in there. So that's why I'm just gonna put these mounting nuts on loosely, and then I'll give it a good, good lookie up there. There we go. Everything's clear, nothing is being pinched. Perfect. Now we can remount this ignition switch, should line right up. There you go. That's a 7-millimeter socket. And you should notice the black part of the connector plug, slowly going into the white switch. I'm just gonna snug it up once it bottoms out. If it doesn't go smoothly, something's bent. So, take it apart and re-look at it.

So this is gonna go back up in there, and bring it back in, and it locks right up on the metal bracket, has little guide pins. Now the harness part of the harness is up and locked out of the way. Now I'm gonna hook up my indicator cable. So I like to try to loop the cable first. So then you can bring this light mounting bracket down. It's gonna fit right in there like that. This is that little 5.5-millimeter socket. This only has to be snug. There you go. Now I'm gonna tighten up the four nuts that hold that steering column onto the vehicle, 13 millimeter, pull up on the steering column, give yourself a break.

Okay, once all four of those are tightened, I'm gonna wanna put this fuse box back up. I wanna be able to make sure that it's seated correctly, and I can see everything underneath, no wires that get pinched. Like I said before, I have a plow on this truck. So I've got all these extra wires. You shouldn't, unless you have a factory-installed plow, it shouldn't be this bad. Should be a nice design harness. So our steering wheel finally locked. So I've got to unlock it, make sure that it goes perfectly like going down the road. I'm gonna lock it again. So now I can go underneath here. I'm gonna put the steering column onto the steering shaft. And it is a notch, it's cut out, can only go in one way, so that's always good, right? If you have to, you will steer them a little bit. There we go. Thread lock, put on there, please. I already put some on. Let it dry a little bit. Never want this bolt to fall out when you're going down the road. That's definitely not gonna be fun.

Okay. Now we can hook in the harness over here on the right side. And then we're gonna go over the left, should only have this little solenoid that you saw on the column, that's the brake release. And we are good to go down here. Let's put our cover on, then we'll put the kick panel on, and we'll be done. I'm gonna put the cover on. And I did forget the shifter cable, so that's going on next. I'd like to say the cover's the easy part. It's probably one of the most challenging parts because it's plastic. Three Phillips screws. Now we just have to put the tilt steering wheel, just gonna put it right in there, slide it in, don't forget I showed you that it has this nice two-flattened spots for a wrench or adjustable pair of pliers if you wanna snug it up real tight.

So here is the plastic part that sits in that bracket. It's a little cut out like an H or U, shall I say. It goes up like this, and that plastic piece is gonna slide right in. So for the cable up to the top, find the opening, put it in the nice little guided space, bring it down, and it will lock, you'll hear it lock. Hopefully, I'm gonna put the brake down there and it locks and that tab that we had to pull back locks in there. So, on this truck, because the steering column was locked, I mean, it was broken, it wouldn't shift anymore. So I'd gone down to the actual transmission and after I popped the cable off to shift it so that we could roll it into the bay. So, in order to put that cable back on, I'm gonna unlock the steering, and I'm gonna see if I can freely move this back and forth till that banjo part of the cable lines up, which it's right there. Lines up perfectly. You can start it in a little center of that hole. Then I just take a pair of pliers like that. See if I can get this light to stay, and then I'm just going to open the pliers.

We're going over the plastic and lock it in. Now we have the ability to put it back into park. There we go. Turn the key off. Let's put the knee panel on and we're ready to go. So these are just those little plastic tabs you see. Spring-loaded, they're gonna line right up with these mounting spots. Let's make sure all the wires are out of the away, push it in, and turn it. Flathead screwdriver. Yep, that's it. I have a flathead screwdriver in my hand. And now we're ready to go. So hopefully, this video for a broken shifter tube helped you out and you enjoyed watching it. And if you're not already a subscriber, please subscribe, don't forget to ring that bell because that turns on all your notifications, so you won't miss a future video. And P.S, I'm not standing in a ditch, this is how tall I am.