thrown into neutral

[brucebruce19]

So for starters I have a 97 dodge ram 1500 5.2, obviously if there is anything else u want to know just ask lol but now for my problem. So it happened a couple of weeks ago where I hit a lot hole pretty good n by good I when it had to knock something loose. It threw me into neutral but at the time I didn't think anything of it. But now every time I hit a decent size bump or something of that nature I get thrown into neutral, I can avoid this by just keeping my hand on the shifter as I drive which isn't a problem but from time to time I have to adjust n by than I hit something n get out of drive. I also have felt that my shifter feels like its not locking n is very loose when going into p,r,n,d. So my question is really what could I b looking at to solve this problem ?

 

[preachp]

Hi bruce,
since I doubt you broke the internal retainers in the tranny I suspect that there is some type of mechanical lock in the shifter itself (maybe in the steering column) that keeps the shifter in the correct position, sort of like the gear selector on a snow blower. Most likely cracked it or knocked it loose. BTW that doesn't sound like a pot hole it sounds more like you hit a crater! Go online and see if you can find a parts diagram of your steering column and/or shifter, that will give you an idea of how it is setup and may point you to the problem.
Good luck and hope this helps a little.

preachp

 

[brucebruce19]

Might as well been a crater haha but thank you for the response. Is there any specific name for the part that you could think of? I've been looking around for a shifter lock but I'm starting to think that it's not called that