I have a 94 Ford Ranger 4.0 2 wheel drive. My transmission has been making a whining noise, so I decided to change the fluid. I removed the fill and drain plugs and drained it. I filled it by removing the shifting **** and filling it there. Now when I put the shifter back in, I cannot get it into any gear and the truck stalls when in neutral, like it is in gear even though the shifter acts like it is out of gear. Any ideas?

 

Manual trans needs to be in Neutral when you remove and install shifter, otherwise you will get what you described.

You need to pull out the shifter again and manually align the two rails to neutral, then install the shifter

Last picture in this article shows trans rails in neutral position: TRS Magazine - Shifter Bushing Replacement

You can see the two slots aligned.
You may need to rock the truck(move the drive line) to free up the rails to move them as they can be locked from pressure.