Neutral Safety Switch???

[CimminoBrothers]

My 72 Baja project car has a switch on the drivers side nose cone that has a red/black wire going to it and I don’t know where it originally started from. It travels with the starter wire and is even using a double shrouded connector under the rear seat. I’ve replaced most of the wires and I lost my “Before “ pics to a bad file. Any help is greatly appreciated!
Here are a couple pics.

[VW_Jimbo]

That wire is part of the autostick system. Does your car still have an autostick in it?
_________________
Jimbo

There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but all the time necessary the second time!

[CimminoBrothers]

No, it’s manual.

[KTPhil]

I'm stumped, so I'll throw out some guesses.

On some California cars, emissions control included limiting ignition advance until you were in top gear. This was mostly for automatics, and it controlled a vacuum can. So this doesn't look quite like that.

Being a single wire, that switch must work by grounding that wire under certain conditions. Use a VOM to find out when. Or try running a test light with power, and use that wire as the test light ground, and see when it lights up (i.e., in what gear). That may give us a hint.

Normally the backup light switch is on the other side. Do you have one there?

EDIT: I found this pic... do you have a Bus tranny?

[CimminoBrothers]

Yes I have a reverse switch on the other side. It looks like the type 2 picture. I just don’t know where it’s suppose to land. If it’s a constant hot or a keyed hot. And it’s not in ANY schematic I can find…

[KTPhil]

What's weird is that the usual wire path for backup lights is to get power from the coil. Yours goes up to the frunk? I would guess it's for something else then.

Try the VOM/test light trick and report when the switch closes/grounds out.

[CimminoBrothers]

I take that back, it “looks like” the type 2 switch I’m asking about but I do have another switch on the passenger side which I believe is my reverse light switch.

It has two black wires going to it.

I thought it might be a neutral safety switch and I’m not sure where it originates but I do know it is in the trunk. I’ll put power to it via the key switch and see if it does anything and then I’ll try running it to ground also.

Thanks so far!

[KTPhil]

[ashman40]

[CimminoBrothers]

KTPhil-I understand what you’re saying and I will do it the way you explained.


Ashman - Thanks for the schematic! I have not seen this one yet and I think it will help.

I will keep you guys posted on what I find.

[CimminoBrothers]

Ashman- it’s not the same, I only have one red/black wire to the switch and it definitely came from the trunk area and it long enough to reach the fuse block or the steering harness.?

Any other thoughts?

[ashman40]

The above diagram seems to be missing a wire. The skinny wire running from the shifter to the E17 switch doesn't end at E17. It continues on to the N7 Control Valve. You can see this in the below '72 pic.

This wire allows either the shifter or the E17 switch to ground the Control Valve, activating it. But the diagram indicates this wire is brown, not black/red??


I'm guessing here... could it be the ATF Temp sensor (F17) in the above pic? This is a single wire switch. The wire color is wrong, but that small gauge wire runs from the transmission to the speedometer.

I'm just going from the above diagram... I've never seen one of these temp sensors before.
_________________
AshMan40
---------------------------
'67 Beetle #1 {project car that never made it to the road }
'75 Beetle 1200LS (RHD Japan model) {junked due to frame rot}
'67 Beetle #2 {2019 project car - Wish me luck!}

[CimminoBrothers]

I was thinking about a temp sensor also at first but it’s not a probe tip, it definitely has a pressure switch in it. I used my ohm meter and it was open when depressed (as if it was in gear) and had a reading when it was not (as if it was in neutral). I even tested the theory installed and same results. So it’s definitely a neutral safety switch. I just don’t know where it connects. Maybe the ignition switch but I don’t where???

[busdaddy]

How sure are we this car is really a 72?, that sure looks like seat belt interlock stuff to me.
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[CimminoBrothers]

I do know the motor was swapped out, it’s an 1835 but not sure if they changed out the transmission or not? If it were a seatbelt sensor, where would it attach to? Also I’m not getting power to the starter when I turn the key over.

[sb001]

The switch you are seeing on the nose cone is indeed the neutral safety switch for an autostick transmission. Yes the thicker red/ black starter wire went to it first to prevent the autostick from being started in gear.
The other wire you are seeing under the rear seat was for the ATF temperature switch warning light in the dash. On the earlier autosticks there were two temperature sensors- one for Drive 1 gear and one for Drive 2. These sensors were located on the back side of the transmission bell housing, and then the wires coming off both of those went to a temperature switch selector mounted on the passenger side of the autostick transmission housing. If one of the temp sensors sensed the ATF getting too hot, it would send a signal to that selector switch which then sent a signal up through that wire to the ATF warning light mounted in the speedometer. Later autosticks did away with the temp sensor for Drive 1 and the selector switch and just used a single temp sensor for Drive 2 gear and sent the signal directly from the sensor to the ATF warning light.

Here are the wiring diagrams for both the early and later versions of the autsotick:

_________________
I'm the humblest guy on this board.

1969 autostick sedan, family owned since new
1600 SP engine
Solex 30 PICT 3 carburetor
Bosch 113905205AE autostick distributor

[VW_Jimbo]

Too funny! As I stated earlier it is part of the autostick system. Disconnect it on both ends and drive it.
_________________
Jimbo

There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but all the time necessary the second time!

[CimminoBrothers]

Hey Jimbo, I seen your first reply and I answered you that it was a manual but never heard back so I kept asking… Not sure on what to do. So I will eliminate the wire and go from there.

Thanks everybody for your input. I’ll keep y’all posted.

Joe

[ashman40]

[CimminoBrothers]

The switch only has one wire going to it and under the seat it only had the T2 splice, one side is the starter wire and the other is the wire going to the Neutral Safety switch.

I thought it needed to connect to the wiring harness to the key switch but I’m not sure.