Automatic, Neutral Safety Switch

[spiffy]

I will attempt to describe and show the beautifully simple and neccesary neutral safety switch. It hides out underneath the gear selector housing....
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and spends about 28 years or so at a time being completely nocturnal and minding its own damn business. When you actually dig this creature out from its hiding place it looks like this..
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and this...
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All this thing does is keep us dumb humans from starting the bus in any gear OTHER then park or neutral. This keeps us from running over our own heads while tinkering with the starter and it is not very nice to the internal parts of the tranny to start it in gear.

How it works..
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This is the top view, notice the two wires coming in from the top...one is red and the other one is red with a black stripe. The wires on the bottom consist of one green wire and one black wire....... I think I have seen these wire color combinations elswhere on the bus....but were oh were could they be? Lets see...this little fart only works when it is creating a connection via a spring loaded copper strip on the gear shift lever and connects to stips of copper that connect to the afforementioned wires....like so:
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AHHH The red and red and black one are from starter land!!!! Hmmm green....ignition!!!!......black......ground!!! So this little beast is just a simple 'switch' that disrupts the path when it needs to and creates a path when it needs to.

Problem...those little copper strips need to be cleaned up every now and then....or else!!!! (well, unless you LIKE the Wal Mart in Missoula ) The block also needs to be adjusted to keep the optimal position for contact with the gear selector.

Hope this helps someone..... anyone besides me who actually has an automatic bus. Yeah, I know I don't have 4 forward gears and I am somehow missing out on a quintissential bus experience that is the manual bus tranny. But my left foot is happy as it sits doing nothing with my left arm, plus juggling while driving is actually possible now. Thank you for your time and if you happen to see a guy driving a bus that is very reclined in his seat and still able to accelerate from a stop whilst giving his bus friend two peace signs...that would be me

[fido]

Nice work.

Will add a '73 auto to this next time I pull it apart :)

Quick question - does the block switch the reversing lights on? I am pretty sure it must, as my lights havent worked since I adjusted the block so I could start in neutral as well as park... Time to get adjusting and cleaning those copper contacts again....

[Amskeptic]

Nice work.

Will add a '73 auto to this next time I pull it apart :)

Quick question - does the block switch the reversing lights on? I am pretty sure it must, as my lights havent worked since I adjusted the block so I could start in neutral as well as park... Time to get adjusting and cleaning those copper contacts again....

I believe so. What say you, spiffy? Factory wiring does not assign black wires to ground. I believe you will see the red/red/black line up briefly at P and N, but does the green and black line up at reverse?
Colin

[spiffy]

I have to go adjust mine again after this weekends trip

safety switch!!

AHEM!!! excuse me.

apparently these things get REALLY fussy with old age, so I need to do some more investigating...luckily they are easy to get to.

And, aye the reverse lights are triggered by this devise as well....that's what nailed down Colin's phone diagnosis on mine.

Wonder if you can buy Rabbit or other VW automatic Neutral safety switches??

[Amskeptic]

Wonder if you can buy Rabbit or other VW automatic Neutral safety switches??

Fix what you got. More satisfying. Use De-Ox liberally and it will last longer than a new one.
Colin

[Sluggo]

I think wee need to creat a sticky (uh oh) in each section that contains links to great posts like this. So they don't get lost.

Nice Work!

[fido]

Well, I went digging into my gear lever today in teh hope of making the reversing lights work. I was not successful, although I did take some pictures, which are below for those interested. I have a spare connection block so I swapped that in but it also didnt help. Having made sure the contact block was in the correct place, I now need to check the cables to and from teh switch to find the problem. The taped up join is a previouis owner's addition - soldered underneath, so definately a connection there. Manually bridging the cables also had no effect, so we definately have an issue with a cable somewhere.

Spare connector:



Nearside view (RHD bus)...



Offside view (inc taped soldered wire)...

[Amskeptic]

Well, I went digging into my gear lever today in teh hope of making the reversing lights work. I was not successful,

Thanks for the pictures. If you establish wire color assignations let us know. If you jump from battery to reverse bulb + contact, you can verify circuit from bulbs to grounds.. I once spent too much time at in-line fuse and switch and wiring before discovering that both sockets were just crudded up.
Colin

[fido]

Red from ign switch, red and black to starter

Green from fuse no.11

Black to reversing lights

Black and yellow I havent figured... Must be a feed for something. As it too must be fed from fuse 11, that means it must be the kickdown feed. I havent traced this wire back yet though.

Will be testing the bulbs like you say Colin. - As they wont have been used for 3 years (that was the last time I saw them come on), the contacts are probably shot.

[spiffy]

Thanks for the wire tracking fido....I am still having issues with mine and I think I need to trace the wires and look for problems....you just helped me out big time!

[spiffy]

Well, I found the problem......a blue wire over by the hot start relay that came loose......I was a victim of a comedy of errors. Live and learn

[fido]

my problem was the earth from the reverse lights and number plate light had come loose! Easy fix in the end!

Just revisiting this as I directed another camper fan from a different forum to this thread and realised I didnt complete the story!