On Sun, 25 Nov 2012 17:30:52 -0600, PastTense
> wrote:

>I have a 1988 Crown Victoria with a 5.0 engine--with 110,000 miles on
>it.
>
>A few days ago when I stopped the car wouldn't go into reverse. After
>a while of shifting through gears, shutting the car off, restarting
>reverse suddenly started working again. I drove it 20 miles to my
>mechanic. He found that a bracket ( or something?) holding a cable
>just under the fuel injector had broken and got another one from the
>Ford dealer.
>
>Currently the transmission slips in overdrive. If I put the
>transmission lever into Drive instead of Overdrive the transmission
>works OK.
>
>Any thoughts of what could be wrong and possible fixes? Is it fixable
>without dismantling the transmission?
>
>What are the consequences of just driving with the car in Drive? How
>likely is it transmission will go completely out soon? Would it be
>safe to take the car on long trips? Any problems driving at 75 miles
>per hour? How much will it reduce high fuel economy?
>
>What's your experience with junkyard transmission replacements for
>this old a vehicle?
>
>Thanks.

The possible problem here is that when the bracket broke it messed up
the pressures in the transmission. I've been told that driving them
for very long with the cable not connected properly, as would happen
when the bracket broke, is very damaging to the transmission. That
said, there is really no way of knowing exactly what going on with
yours, it could be anything from just worn out OD clutch/band (don't
know which it uses) to a failure of some of the hard parts. When the
OD in my Explorer went out it was due to a disintegrated roller thrust
bearing for the OD unit which then proceeded to grind up other parts.
But I was able to drive it for many days by not using OD. I could
tell other things were wrong however - it no long had any engine
braking when you took your foot off the gas. How is yours in that
regard, does it still feel "normal" when you coast? If it's just worn
out clutches you can probably drive it for a long time and many miles
by just not using OD. That's how all cars used to be, it just means
the engine runs a little faster and you use more gas - it doesn't hurt
anything. But if you have other damage there is no way to predict
when it will "blow up". Personally, if it seems OK other then not
having OD it'd just keep driving it till if and when it stops working
and then worry about a replacement.