Transmission Sport/Manual mode won't engage

[BatKing]

Hi,

My late 2004 4.4's transmission shifter seems has problem. It won't engage to Sport or Manual mode if I put the shifter to left side. it is not 100% fail. but time to time it did this thing. Sometime, it won't engage after I put the shifter to left side. but if I push it up and down to switch gear as it is in manual mode, then it will start to engage and works afterward.

But this morning, no matter what I did it just won't do anything. So I did a little research online. Base on This it seems there is some loose wire in the shift box. So I pull the shift nob up and shift boot to see what is going on. But the funny thing is once it is pulled, the DS mode start to engage and works (I just try to put the metal stick to left without the nob and see if any wire is moving loosely) . Visual inspection don't tell me any loose wire under. I guess during my pull, the loose wire somehow got pushed a bit and start to work?

My questions is if anyone have this problem before? the X is wife's car and relatively low mile (65K) and she don't use DS mode at all. I personally use it very rarely too. maybe just few times a year when driving to ski on the hills.

Thanks