I'm stumped with this thing. A C4 which has given me no problems suddenly died. I drove to the store, no problem. When I left, I cranked her, put the old girl in gear, she jerked a little like she was in gear, and didn't move. The emergency brake was not engaged. Would not move in neutral. Could not be pushed in neutral. Removed the drive train and she moved easily.
Is this sudden change normal? Does the C4 need to be rebuilt or is there a cheaper and better alternative? What's going on here?

 

I don't know anything about the old C4, but was the shift lever effort normal? Not easier or harder than normal? What I'm getting at here is if the trans itself is still in Park and the Parking Pawl is holding it, due to linkage or shift shaft problem.

 

Granpa,
She shifted just like normal. If it is the parking pawl, does that mean a rebuild?
Thanks.

 

Its probably worth crawling under and making sure that the shift shaft into the trans does move properly while someone shifts through the gears up top. If it moves OK, then could assume linkage is OK.
If you have the driveshaft disconnected from the trans, could try starting engine and seeing if the trans output turns when in gear. If it doesn't rotate fast (engine RPM divided by gear ratio), it doesn't sound good.
If it really is locked, sounds like the trans case would need to be opened up.
You might try alldata.com, and search for TSB's for your make and model. I very very vaguely remember reading something once about some trans having the Parking Pawl break off, and jam the output shaft. But I don't remember when, or if it even was Ford.
Other possibilities could be some major mechanical failure, unrelated to Parking Pawl.

 

It's been my experience that an automatic with a lot of miles will die very suddenly, the friction plates just wear out, and alluvasudden she won't go. Nowm, if you can't push it in neutral, that may bve the parking pawl, but that would be very very rare, those are what are known in the biz as "delta parts", meaning safety critical and they are pretty much designed to withstand the kind of things that would kill a ****roach...pull the extension housing off and see if the rooster comb is bent, and if the shift control shaft (internal linkage) is free. If it's okay, it will move freely if you "tweak" it a bit, it has a definite range it should stay in, but it shouldn't be "stiff" or hard to twang. It's hard to describe. If you know much about transmissions, the c-4 is about a 2 on the scale of how hard to fix, they go together real easy.

G

 

Thanks for the replies. We have a parts truck with a C6 on a 360, but the guys didn't want to do the conversion to a 302. It sounds to me that converting what we have will be the easiest way to get me back on the road.
Also, I was sharing the truck with two 'kids' and suspect that is why we have the problem. They will not touch my truck again.