Weird AOD Problems

I've done alot of searching, but nothing useful to my situation yet. I have an 87 LX 5.0, here's the symptoms:

- When I bought it the tv cable was unhooked becasue the grommet was missing on the TB. I replaced that and the car drove fine, just shifted hard. It's a project car, and I probably put 4 miles on it.

-It sat for a few weeks and when I went to start it the dash lit up, but wouldn't turn over. I jumped the selenoid and it started, but was in forward gear even though the lever was in P.

-Every Gear position was a forward gear, Drove and shifted normally, just very firmly.

-Dropped the pan last night to check the linkage and everything looked good. No burnt fluid, no flakes, nice and clean.

-Put it all back together and had the same exact problem.

-Shut it down, restarted by jumping the selenoid and now every gear is a neutral. Still won't start with the key.

Questions:

-Does it sound like a bad torque converter?

-What position should the manual valve be in when replacing the pan?

-Should the manual valve have enough free movement that I could slide it out of the valve body?

-Any other thoughts or suggestions?

I agree. That explains not starting with the key, but if that were the only problem I wouldn't have the all forward or all neutral situation.

Worth a shot for 40 bucks. That would be great if it solved the problem, but Idon't want to get my hopes up!

Just jumped the neutral switch and it started right up, still no gears though.

As far as the detent, the linkage moves fine and I can hear the teeth on the inner linkage popping in place with every shift.

What I really need to know is when putting the pan back on, what position should the manual valve be in relevance to the detent pin?

Also, I still don't know if the manual valve should have as much range of free movement as it currently does.

Also- I just let it run for 30 min, level never dropped on the dipstick. It's reading about 2 inches above the crosshatch, and I know I didn't add too much fluid. After replacing the filter it only has 5 quarts and reads way too high. Bad pump?