97 T-Bird stuck in Park - intermittent

Sep 15, 2004 4 Replies

My 1997 Thunderbird gets stuck in Park sometimes. Just started doing it within the last 3 weeks. Fails maybe one out of every 10 times.



Sometimes works if I press down hard on the brake pedal. Sometimes moving the shift lever slightly fixes it. And sometimes turning the ignition off and then restarting the car fixes it.



It only does this when I am especially tired or stressed, so I wonder if I am doing something different.



Any suggestions?


Either the stop lamp switch or the wiring that goes to it could be responsible. Look just above your brake pedal.

Thanks to everyone for the responses in the group and in email.

I'm going to try replacing the switch before replacing the interlock solenoid. (The switch is cheap, I know where it is, and it looks easy to replace.)

Of course the symptoms disappeared the day after the original posting, so won't know if it is really fixed or not :-(

Just start it in neutral.

Rob

I will if the trouble comes back before I replace the switch. The stop switch cost me $5.99 today, and replacing it supposedly takes 10 minutes. (I will reserve a couple of hours next weekend to do it. Have way too much experience with "10 minute jobs" in the past.)

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