96 V6 with no 1st or OD gear

[jmcdonaldva1]

I have a 1996 V6 auto and have had a weird problem forever.
The car takes off in 2nd gear and will not shift to OD.
If I manually shift there is no difference going from 1st to 2nd gear but it does seem to shift from 2nd to 3rd.
Sometimes it will not start in park and I have to move the gear selector to Neutral to get it to start.

Any thoughts?

I assume I may need to replace or adjust the transmission range sensor to fin the start problem but would that switch mess the other gears up?

Thanks in advance!

 

[MustangLX-5.0]

I would most likely bet the Trans Range Sensor. its def the TRS for the no start problem. But you'd be suprised at just how much that TRS controls. It tells the solenoids when to activate in order to change into a different gear. A contribution to this problem could also be a output shaft speed sensor. Does your speedometer work ok? If the pcm thinks the car is at a certain speed, it may not shift into a specific gear to avoid trans damage. And it may not shift into OD for similar reasons. Replace the TRS first and see if you still have problems. having 2 bad solenoids go bad at the same time seems unlikely so just trying to rule these out.