First Gear Help

It sounds to me as if there is a problem with the shifter itself. Of course without being able to see it, it's hard to confirm.
The problem we had on that old Vette was the shifter would start to enter the reverse gate when we tried to go to 1st gear gate. It was a reproduction of the original Muncie shifter.
Me not being familiar with the Mopar shifter, I don't know if there is an adjustment for this, but there was'nt any on the Muncie. The only adjustments we had were to adjust the rods.

George