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neutral safety switch, 1980 Toyota Corona

I have a 1980 Toyota Corona liftback sedan, which every so often won't start. I'm pretty sure it's something to do with the neutral position safety switch.

Rather than buy a new switch, I wonder if there is a way to bypass the switch, but not permanently. If I could wire in a toggle switch, on those rare occasions when I can't get it to start I could flip the switch, and then start it. I don't really want to bypass the switch permanently, because of possible danger if I try to start it when in Drive.

Where would I make the connections? Under the hood somewhere, or are the terminals near the gear shift (floor-mounted)?

Thanks.

Doug

Reply to
doug
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I had a 1980 Celica with a similar problem. As a quick fix it was possible to bypass the switch at the point where the loom from the switch joined another part of the wiring harness under the hood, there was a male and a female connector on the main loom, presumably manual transmission cars would have been wired this way.

I later took the switch off the car, it's on the side of the transmission, and cleaned out all the old dried up grease, which was preventing the contacts closing, and re-lubricated and re-assembled it, (it was held together with screws and sealed with an 'O' ring.). No problems after that. If you try this watch out for the tiny springs behind the moving contacts.

Another cause of your problem could be the contacts inside the starter motor, but these can be changed if necessary without replacing the whole thing.

In message , doug writes

Reply to
Neil J. Harris

Can't find neutral safty switch?

Reply to
GODZ1

Hi, It's on the transmission where the shift rod enters the case. It's retained by the nut on the shift rod and a single screw which permits position adjustment. On mine the grease inside had dried up and the contacts weren't making proper contact. Cleaning out the old grease and stretching the little springs fixed the problem. As a temporary measure there's some connectors where the loom from the switch joins the main harness where you can disconnect (and bypass) the switch and "plug the main harness back into itself" as one wire has a male connector and the other has a female connector. Perhaps the main harness is common to both manual and automatic models.

In message , GODZ1 writes

Reply to
Neil J. Harris

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