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Bought a kinda hunk of junk ($350) '92 auto in March, have been driving it sick and gradually getting to its ailments. Except they keep getting to me before I can.
Prior owner showed me how he had to start it: Hold shifter knob all the way forward or starter wouldn't crank.
This was, either a burnt contact in neutral safety switch or a misadjusted neutral safety switch, and I told myself I'd get at it, maybe get a new switch from junkyard.
Fast forward to midsummer and it started to get notchy, I mean, even notchier than it was. You'd have to hold shifter HARD forward. Then hard forward and OVER to one side, Then, try a couple of times. This weekend, it was, hold key in crank position, push shifter hard forward and wiggle it around. Then by yesterday, hold key in crank position and SLAM shifter forward and listen to see if it cranked.
So, my question for the Saabnet is this - - am I a big enough procrastinator yet?
Actually I waited for today and tackled it - - Bellows block pried out (hey on a '92 it's more like a real bellows, in hard plastic, instead of the hard rubber foam block on my 89s and the 90 I stripped.) Shifter shaft cover plate pried up. Put key in, moved shifter back to get at two screws under that plate down front, two under where rear ash tray went, pried door switch pack up and unplugged it, pried interior light control switch up and ditto, pulled e-brake as hard up as I could, key out, lifted console cover up at rear, pulled keyswitch light out, got console past end of handbrake lever, and waggled it around and convinced shifter shaft cover to angle down and thru hole in console.
Then two fat Torx screws hold neutral safety switch to side of things.
I was gonna bridge it for now but it's far from simple, five wires in, three of them hard soldered on. So I said, "Looks like I'm gonna have to go in, right here in the car." And I did.
I pried the four ears of the steel side cover up and lifted it off, then the nylon slider with riveted on sliding electrical contacts lifted off the pivot pin.
Cleaned the brass contact strips embedded in the plastic case mainly by scraping the burnt areas with a flat screwdriver blade. Lotsa metal still there tho.
Cleaned the upper sliding contact button, which was much arced and burnt down, with a Swiss file, and bucked up its spring brass tongue by prying it.
I also used the file to bevel the front and rear edges of the contact button though I hated to give up the material. But it seemed to kind of catch on the brass contact strips when it slid past them, so I had to do womething.
Tried it un-assembled and un-installed and car cranked fine when slider was in Park position.
So, back together and back in. Pin thru shifter shaft extends out to driver's side, and that pin sits in a recess in the contact slider.
The switch is adjustable on its mounting screws: There's a little black stripe on the center top of the black plastic case, and I made that line up with the pin coming out of the shifter when car was shifted into neutral, then tightened everything down.
Car now starts fine in Park and in Neutral, no wiggling of shifter at all.
Someone on here within the last week had a problem with a sluggish starter and said he'd already replaced the neutral safety switch, said that wasn't the problem. But he also mentioned wiggling shifter to get better results. I suggest at least loosening neutral switch and adjusting its position if your automatic car has my symptoms, or his.
posted by 70.105.239...
, Sun, 19 Sep 2010 14:32:45
, Mon, 10 Sep 2007 17:13:48
, Mon, 10 Sep 2007 16:28:49
, Mon, 10 Sep 2007 17:14:56, Mon, 10 Sep 2007 15:58:23
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