3 pin neutral saftey switch check?

[Mojoe9955]

I have a good battery and good starter. After replacing the heads on my 2000 Ram van, I have a no start situation.
It worked before now I get a "doink" when I try to start/turn the key. As I said the battery is good x 3 different ones and the starter works on the bench using said batteries. I'm thinking the neutral saftey or connector as the wiring harnesses alongside the drivers side head got a jostled around pretty good in the process.
Electrical situations are not my strong suite. How do I go about checking the switch and the harness?
Thanks

 

[66Valiant528]

Did you forget to hook up a ground?

 

[Mojoe9955]

Grounds are good and clean. Turn the key to on and all the dash warning lights, radio, headlights work...turn the key to start..."doink"

 

[Inertia]

If your getting a sound the ignition and neutral switch is working to ground the relay .
Clean your battery terminals, try a boost.

 

[Mojoe9955]

I have checked, jumped, charged cleaned it all, more than a few times. It does it in park, reverse, drive, neutral,first and second gear. If the switch and connector are good, it should only do it in P or N.
If you know how to test the neutral safety switch or connector on a 46re transmission in a 2000 Dodge Ram 1500 please let me know.
Thank you

 

[66Valiant528]

Stupid question time, can' you rotate the crank ?

 

[Mojoe9955]

Did that too, a few times in both directions. Rocked and pushed the van in both directions. I also checked the relay and fuse and they are good.

 

[66Valiant528]

Can you jump the relay? And if its like a 5 pin head lamp relay type thing swap it with another one in the fuse panel. Theres usually multiple of the same number.

 

[Mojoe9955]

Thanks for the help.

 

[67Dart273]

The starter relay/ neutral switch is a simple circuit

The starter relay has 4 terminals for an automatic, or stick 70 and later except some trucks which do not have a clutch switch.

The big "stud" is one of the contacts, hooked direct to the battery, and also used as a junction point

The big "square" screw terminal is a large wire which, when the relay is energized, sends 12V down to the starter solenoid

Last, are two "push on" flag terminals. One is getting the "start" signal from the ignition switch, the other is the opposite end of the relay coil, and runs down to the center post of the neutral switch, which should be grounded in N or P.

So identify and remove the wire to the transmission, and jumper that relay flag terminal to ground. BE CAREFUL because no it will start in any gear position. Si if it will crank.

The "doink" you are hearing MAY be the relay. If so, doing the above will gain you nothing.

Now to test the rest, make certain the shifter is in park, and take a screwdriver and jumper across the two large bare terminals on the relay. Starter should crank. If it does not, it MAY be that very wire

So then move to the starter and device a way to jumper the two terminals on the starter. The small of course is the solenoid, the large is battery. Starter should crank when those are jumpered.

Suspect anything and everything and test it all. I have seen battery cables that looked great from the outside, but were a corroded mess internally. I once had a batter that the post looked perfectly clean, and would not run the dome light.

If you jumper direct at the starter and it will not crank, check the main cables and connections.

If I may play the odds, likely the no.1 fail to crank cause is dirty battery clamps / posts and terminals

 

[67Dart273]

It is difficult to check a neutral switch per se. They push in some distance for neutral and push in a different distance for backup lights. Some guys are finding that modern replacements "are not the same" and require fiddling with gasket thickness to get them right.

One old trick is to hold the key in "start" and with your other hand, work the shifter from P to N and back, and lsiten for a click or "try" to crank.

Shift linkage can be out of adjustment. The connector at the switch can be bad, corroded, loose, etc.

 

[Mojoe9955]

I could be asking the question in the wrong forum. The responses seem to be relevant to say a 1970 Duster as opposed to a 2000 Dodge Ram Van.
While the theory is the same, the hardware, in this case of the starter relay and solenoid are different. While the theory is the same, the connections are not exposed and don't readily allow us to simply use a screwdriver to jump the connections and start the vehicle, something which I have successfully done numerous times since I started driving in 1972.

 

[Mojoe9955]

On this particular van, I had problems before in a different transmission where the neutral saftey switch seemed faulty, so I bypassed it with a push button wired to momentarily make the connection to start the vehicle. After a few months of this, it was discovered when replacing the torque converter, it was discovered that when converting the transmission from a 5 to 3 pin switch using a Sonnex conversion, it simply was a matter of the adapter and or washer, not being screwed in or compressed enough to make the connection. Moving on to the 3rd transmission which required the same conversion when swapping a 2001 5 pin connector to 2000 3 pin connector harness, the van started correctly before I replaced the heads, which had me streching and moving the wiring harnesses repeatedly in the process, so I'm thinking of ruling out the switch and, moving on to the actual wiring and connections from beginning to end as 67Dart273 suggested.

 

[67Dart273]

Sorry I breezed right past the year. I haven't checked but it is likely that another relay in the box is interchangeable. There are some different configurations. A quick swap would at least indicate that the relay is or is not at fault.

I no longer have my paper truck manuals, after the house fire. Trying to deal with the multimegabyte online ones is a PITA. If I get time I'll try and look up the diagram.

You can still do some checking if the relay does not have the huge oversize terminals. Either buy some male and female flag terminals and make a short jumper for each pin, or buy a relay socket (take yours to be sure it fits) and then put male flags on the pigtail. Then you can plug the relay in and access the terminals, jumper across the contacts to see if the starter cranks, and to measure if the relay is getting "start" voltage from the key, etc.

 

[TT5.9mag]

I have checked, jumped, charged cleaned it all, more than a few times. It does it in park, reverse, drive, neutral,first and second gear. If the switch and connector are good, it should only do it in P or N.
If you know how to test the neutral safety switch or connector on a 46re transmission in a 2000 Dodge Ram 1500 please let me know.
Thank you

on a 46re NSS the two outer pins have continuity when the trans is in reverse, for the backup lights. The center pin will show ground in park or neutral.

 

[Mojoe9955]

No thanks for the input. Iswapped the relay with another, as all the others have the same part # and configuration, getting the same result, so it doesn't seem to be the relay. I'm moving on to making a jumper to test the starter as you suggest to move it along. I've never heard of a relay socket tester, but looking into it, I must like noid lights they are pretty cool. My van is in the driveway and we're in middle of a Noreaster and stormy weather for the next few days so I'll have to wait it out in order to get back to it

 

[Mojoe9955]

It may have been an electrical issue, but can't be certain. I no longer have the "doink" so I'm leaning towards the shift cable as it will shift thru the gears and run on the column, but now it will start only in neutral. If I go under and push the lever on the transmission, it will move a touch further and will start in Park but won't again until I go under to manually set it up. So I moving away from the NSS to trying to adjust the shift cable.

 

[Mojoe9955]

I wasn't able to adjust the cable, but with the combination of a slightly longer lever on the transmission from my parts horde and a slight adjustment of the cable mounting bracket, I, did mange to get it working correctly.