1957 Ford park will not hold
 

I have a 1957 Ford Ford-O-Matic 2 speed. When it is in the park position the car still rolls, does not lock up. All the other gears, reverse, neutral, drive work fine and are aligned with the shifter marks. I have checked the linkage and it is tight, no loose bushing, and the lever cannot go any further in the park position, I was thinking it may not be fully engaging but that does not seem to be the case.
Is there an easy fix to this. One good thing, my emergency brake does work good.

Re: 1957 Ford park will not hold
 

Could be the parking pawl inside the trans has been broken off.

Re: 1957 Ford park will not hold
 

I agree with ponymare pulling the pan will tell the tale

Re: 1957 Ford park will not hold
 

The parking linkage should be accessible through the bottom pan to view to see what the problem is. As mentioned above, it is most likely a damaged park pawl that engages the external teeth on the rear planetary drum. Depending on your experience, it might be a fairly easy repair but removing the bottom pan is almost always a messy situation. If you're not comfortable with that, it might be better to take the car to a transmission shop before you get started and have to put it back together to get it mobile again.
The attached pictures show the parking linkage and a bottom view of the rear planetary drum and parking pawl for reference.

Good Luck,
Dave

Re: 1957 Ford park will not hold
 

On many cars, the easiest part to care for is the most neglected. The parking brake. You say yours is good, keep using it every time, and it should stay healthy.

Re: 1957 Ford park will not hold
 

The parking pawl does not hold well on the late 50s and early 60s Fords. Don't depend on it, THEY CAN AND WILL JUMP IN REVERSE WHILE RUNNING.

Re: 1957 Ford park will not hold
 

The Ford-O-matic in my '55 Courier used to jump out of park into reverse. For a while, I simply avoided using the park position and just used the emergency brake, but that kinda stuff bugs me. When I tore into it I discovered (as suspected) the park pawl inside the transmission was broken off. I replaced it with a new one and that fixed it. But I still find myself leaving the gear select lever in neutral anyway since the car starts in neutral as was intended by Fomoco.
I stongly suggest that even if you do have a good park pawl do not put it in park on an un-level surface with the whole weight of the car resting on that pawl. That is a surefire way to destroy it. Keep foot on brake pedal while pulling out emergency brake THEN put it in park (or just use emergency brake by itself).

Re: 1957 Ford park will not hold
 

Thanks for all the info. Not sure if I would want to try to fix this myself, don't know much about trans repairs. If that pawl is easy to locate and change after I take the pan down then I might try it.

Re: 1957 Ford park will not hold
 

Back in the mid 60s, we were doing a dynamic compression on a late 50s Ford. This was winter time. Anyway, to do the compression test, you ran the engine round 2000rpm, and we had the scope hooked up to the car. Suddenly, this thing jumped into reverse, jumped the 4x4 behind the rear tire, and finally got it stopped with only 1/2 the car still in the bay. It destroyed the overhead door, and knocked the scope over. Didn't make any $$$ on that job.:-( :-(