Resistance (ohms) Voltage Manual Lever Position Range Min Max in Volts Park 3770 4607 3.97-4.85 Reverse 1304 1593 3.25-3.96 Neutral 660 807 2.55-3.11 Overdrive 361 442 1.88-2.30 2/Drive 190 232 1.23-1.51 1 78 95 0.61-0.75 By Pete Luban O ne of the most-difficult problems to diagnose on a Ford car or truck is a sud- den neutral condition while the vehicle is cruising in 4th gear. Now this can have a number of causes, depending on which trans- mission is in the car or truck, but the cause we are going to discuss here is that #(~! *&A% Manual Lever Position Sensor – that’s right, the old MLPS. This sensor is responsible for more malfunctions than any other sensor in the sys- tem, and the kicker is that it seldom stores a code 67 or 634. Actually there is a standing joke in our indus- try that says, “You got a problem with a Ford, change the MLPS; it fixes everything,” which ain’t that funny because it’s not that far from the truth. Some of the problems the MLPS can cause are wrong- gear starts, TCC hunting, no 4th gear, engine stalling, high or erratic line pressure and the problem that this article is about – a sudden neutral condition. Whether the MLPS is attached to an E4OD, AXODE, AODE or CD4E, the operating characteristics are the same. What that means is the MLPS is classified as a step-down resistor. The MLPS is supplied 5 volts from the computer as a reference voltage, and as the shift lever is moved from park toward manual low, the voltage in each gear-shift position will decrease as Shift Pointers P  R  N  D  D  2  1 Ford’s Nagging Neutral Nonsense Figure 1 MLPS  30) Lt. Blue/Yellow Ground  46) Gray/Red PCM Splice Splice Splice Manual Lever Position Sensor Gray/Red Lt. Blue/Yellow Splice Gray/Red Gray/Red Baro Sensor Diagnostic Connector ATF Temp Sensor 35W TPS 1 2 D N R P 126W 170W 360W 720W 2740W Figure 2 Printed in the October 1998 Transmission Digest