early a body 904 neutral safety switch

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slantscamp

slantscamp

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hey guys, does anyone make a neutral safety switch for a 1963 904. i think mine is bad. i traced out the circuit and i have power to the relay and if i ground out the neutral safety switch wire it starts and when i take the wire off it wont start.
 
There getting pretty hard to find anymore but I think I saw them listed in the Paddock catalog. Get out the big bucks though. Something like $80 if I remember right.
 
what do you guys think of me just grounding out that wire. thats all its doing through the switch right. i would just have to make sure im not in gear when i start the car.
 
slantscamp said:
what do you guys think of me just grounding out that wire. thats all its doing through the switch right. i would just have to make sure im not in gear when i start the car.
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yep. ground it where you mount the relay.

You going to the show at the Fremont dodge dealer tomorrow?
 
Don't know if you want to do business with Frank Mitchell, but he has a NOS single post Neutral Safety switch for the early transmissions on eBay. Auction # is 360232017993. 12 hours to go. I've bought a few things from him with absolutely no problems.
 
There's one big disadvantage to grounding it. It's a safety item. My Cuda was grounded out when I bought the car and they didn't tell me and one day I was installing a stereo in it and had to pull the shifter down in low to access the under dash good. Wife called me to dinner when I was finishing it up and I forgot to put it back up in park and a few days later I started it up when it was dark in the garage and dome light didn't work so I didn't notice it was still in gear. Dang near ran into my work bench before I got it stopped. For that reason I never bypass them. There's one other way you can fix it pretty cheap. Use a newer style switch. Their only about $10-15 at the auto supply. They have 3 pins. The center pin is the neutral safety pin so you just run your wire to it and your set.
 
fishy68 said:
There's one big disadvantage to grounding it. It's a safety item. My Cuda was grounded out when I bought the car and they didn't tell me and one day I was installing a stereo in it and had to pull the shifter down in low to access the under dash good. Wife called me to dinner when I was finishing it up and I forgot to put it back up in park and a few days later I started it up when it was dark in the garage and dome light didn't work so I didn't notice it was still in gear. Dang near ran into my work bench before I got it stopped. For that reason I never bypass them. There's one other way you can fix it pretty cheap. Use a newer style switch. Their only about $10-15 at the auto supply. They have 3 pins. The center pin is the neutral safety pin so you just run your wire to it and your set.
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I did the same thing. My car's NSS is grounded & I was getting my reverse lights working one day. I left the shifter in R after I got everything working, forgot about it during my excitement & almost went right through the back of the garage.
Not sure if it was just me or my tranny but I put a newer style NSS in my tranny. Everything worked great in a dry run of shifting the car back & forth in the driveway. I took the car out a few days later, stopped at a neighbor's to show him the car, put it in Park & when I went to leave the car would only go into R. I had to drive home through my neighborhood in reverse. Not cool! The linkage jammed up on the new style switch. The switches are more different than you would think. From my experience & talking to a local tranny shop, the new switch does not work in the older tranny but it could just be my tranny. I have plans to drop the pan (it leaks) & take a look at how the NSS & linkage work while the pan is off. I am of the opinion that things should work the way they are designed. I hate the fact that my relay is grounded so the car will start but I will fix it one way or another. If grounding is the way you go, be careful about what gear your car is in. Just my 2 cents.
 
You could route a single wire from the relay to the brake light switch. You would have to press the brake pedal to start. Even a added switch like a horn button would work also.
 
phish1270 said:
The linkage jammed up on the new style switch. The switches are more different than you would think. From my experience & talking to a local tranny shop, the new switch does not work in the older tranny but it could just be my tranny.
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There were different rooster combs used on the valve body and since that's what engages against the switch that's possibly the problem. I haven't worked on an older trans. than a 69 model since the 80's so I don't remember exactly what they were like. Also I haven't worked on very many 904's (mainly do 727's) so it's possible that the rooster comb on them is different. That said be careful when using a different switch than the original.

I apologize to the OP if I gave incorrect info.
 
I apologize to the OP if I gave incorrect info.[/quote]

No apologies are necessary. I just explained what happened to me. Something could be bent or broke in my tranny & the new NSS may work; I doubt it but....
I do not claim to be an expert, just wanted to help out since I get so much info from FABO. I like to feel like part of the community when I am able to actually answer instead of ask.
 
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