camry neutal switch

[jonlemke1]

My 87 camry automatic, which I've owned from new would not start the other winter morning. This has happened a few times over the past 3 or 4 years. The symptoms were no power to the starter relay when turning the key. The battery and electrical checked out fine. Was able to start car with a jump wire from the battery to the starter relay. Decided the problem must be related to the neutral safety switch. Moving the shift lever back and forth has cleared this problem in the past, but this time it would not. So I located the neutral switch on the front of the transmission. To gain easy access I removed the driver side plastic splash guard, This exposed the shift linkage and switch. The switch was not difficult to remove. unplugged the wire harness, removed the small nut that secures the shift linkage arm, spread the tabs on the large nut lock washer, removed the large nut around the pivot shaft, removed the 2 small hex bolts, and finally slid the switch off the pivot shaft. I didn't check but the switch looked like a couple of hundred OEM bucks. I noticed the 6 or so Phillips cap screws and could not resist seeing what was inside. After getting it apart I quickly realized the problem. The inside had a bunch of old sticky remnants of a former lubricant which was preventing the spring loaded copper brushes from contacting the poles on the base plate. The very cold night before I moved the car down my driveway so I could get the van out of the garage. The combination of the gooey stuff in the neutral switch and moving the gear shift in colder temperatures was preventing the brushes from contacting the poles on the base plate of the switch when the gear shift was in park or neutral. If I had let the car warm up when I moved it this problem would not have happened as the heat would have softened the gooey junk and allowed the brushes to contact the poles. This all made sense as this only had happed in the past after I had moved the car a short distance during the winter months. Fortunately the fix was simple, just had to clean out the sticky stuff. I put it back together with a small amount of "A" grease. I may regret using the lube?? Anyway all is fine now. Did not need to purchase a new switch!

[JetspeedCamry]

I dunno what "A" lube is, by aslong as you use an electrically conductive grease, then it should work fine. Its the sort of grease that doesn't "short" the whole thing, but allows electrical parts like relays and solinoids to move with lubrication and still provide good electrical conductivity.