Help Please: E4OD Neutral Safety Switch Replacement

[NYC Diesel]

Thanks for reading. Briefly, here's my situation:

Trying to swap out Neutral Safety Switch (manual parking lever switch) on my 97 PSD F250 E4OD. Got the exact matching Motorcraft part. There are three bolts on it. 2 8mm mounting bolts and 1 15mm on the linkage arm itself. No problem on the 8mms but I am kinda scared off the linkage bolt. Have Pblasted it a few times. My problem is as i try to loosen the linkage bolt it seems to be moving the linkage inside the tranny housing and I am afraid of snapping something off inside the housing. How much force can I safely put on this bolt? Is it a simple right hand thread? I thought I had come across a post somewhere about someone who had broken something off doing this swap.

I disconnected batteries, chocked wheels, set parking brake and put shift in neutral but as soon as I apply pressure to the linkage bolt the shift cable and the shift lever up on the steering column are moving too. When I got back in the cab after trying a little pressure on the bolt the lever had slipped from N down to D.

Any advice appreciated. Feel like I am so close yet so far.

ROT IN HELL OBL!!!

[NYC Diesel]

Swap done! Thanks to Bleheny!