WILL not come out of park

[oldmanneedshelp]

ok, now a new problem, with my 93 escort. last week the car continued to crank over after the key was removed from iginition, got that problem solved with a new starter/solenoid, FROM THE ADVICE of the members here. Now I cant get the damn thing out of park, any ideals as to what this problemo is ?

[A. Souphound]

Originally Posted by oldmanneedshelp

ok, now a new problem, with my 93 escort. last week the car continued to crank over after the key was removed from iginition, got that problem solved with a new starter/solenoid, FROM THE ADVICE of the members here. Now I cant get the damn thing out of park, any ideals as to what this problemo is ?

If the car is parked on a slight upgrade/downgrade the pawl in the transmission may be binding. Try rocking the car back and forth while trying to get it out of park.
Alvin

[mlw35405]

You are pushing the brake pedal while trying to shift, aren't you? Check to see if the brake light fuse is blown, this would cause it not to shift out of pk (are the brake and tail lights working?).

[panzees36]

Just wanted to tell you something funny.The first time I drove an Escort I did not realize that you had to have your foot on the brake in order to put the car in gear.It was my husband's car and I drove it to the store.When I tried to leave I could not get the car to go in gear.It took me about 10 minutes to figure it out and that was just by accident.The very next day,the same thing happened to my husband.I can laugh now but at the time,it wasn't funny.I'm not saying that this is your problem but it just made me think of it.

[Jeep565]

If its an automatic and you push the brake. You may hear a click this is the Neutral safety switch which will allow you to move from park to drive. If this is bad you wont pull it out of park. Check this, its located under your shifter on the right hand side when you push the brake the switch should engage

[jman63]

my '91 lx wagon has a small "slider switch" next to the gearhift. sliding the switch foreward would allow the gearshift to be moved out of park without the car running. may be worth lookin' at???

[DummyMechanic]

So, this is what I would do when it wouldn't go out of park:

- step on the brake pedal and see if you can hear the click sound from below the gearshift. If not check fuse or the relay that releases the shiftlock, if there is a click then move on to the next step
- while stepping on the brake pedal see if you can push the shift release button (the one on the shift stick). If you cannot, what happened with me before was my wife poured Coke there once, and weather was cold, so it froze down there, I had to use a stick to dig the frozen coke out of the ... shift box. Not sure if it's the same in your case.
- If you can push the button but still can't get it out of park then the shift itself is stuck. This is my theory because I haven't seen this before.

Some cars have manual shift release place which is a hole where you stick a screwdriver straight down and press on a small shiftlock pad.

Not sure if I'm missing anything else