SC reverse light switch replacement

[broseed]

hi everyone,

i just wanted to verify that i'm looking at the right place to replace my reverse light switch on my 81 SC. There's a metal wire holding in place a gasket just above where the axle enters the transmission on the right side of the trans (when facing the car's rear end) - is this where the reverse light switch is located? I can see some wire going in to it...

if not, can you let me know where it is? (I have Wayne's book, but am currently not at the same location as where it is...).

tks for your help!

-broseed

[Jim Sims]

I think you have described the speedometer pickup coil. The reverse light switch is on the front nose or cone of the transmission near the shift rod. It is covered with a rubber boot; to easily remove it you'll likely need a "stubby" wrench. Why do you suspect the switch; did the reverse lights recently fail? Did you check fuses and bulbs? Has the engine/transmission been out lately? Sometimes the wires (they run through the engine wiring harness) to the reverse light switch are forgotten and damaged during engine transmission separation or they are "pinched" during engine/tranmission reinstallation. Cheers, Jim

[broseed]

Hey all,

Jim - tks for the advice - I found the switch right away thanks to your directions. My car was at my wrench recently and he said I needed a new reverse light switch (all fuses and bulbs checked out fine) - they did work about a year ago and stopped working after I had a little incident when installing my car stereo (along with my brake switches, which I replaced and my brake lights now work fine). He wanted to charge me $50 bucks for the part, which I found to be a little ridiculous. I went down to my local salvage yard and picked one up for $5.00.

Anyways, when trying to plug the wires back into the switch, they both broke off from their respective plug! I guess the 21 year-old wire was a little brittle. So now I can't test to see if the switch works! However, when touching the wires together, the reverse lights work fine. But now I need your advice on how to reattach the wires to each of their respective male plugs! Or, if i need to replace the wire entirely??? I'm at a loss (...tried soldering to no avail - what are the plugs made out of anyway)...

Thanks again for the help guys!

-Broseed

[broseed]

bump - any help out there?

tks,
dyl

[Jim Sims]

I repaired one of these fittings by soldering the wire back into the plug fitting. I had to heat up the fitting on the bench and "suck" the old solder out using a "solder sucker" tool. As an alternative one can buy solder wicking braid at electronic hobby supply stores and use that to remove the solder. I then got under the car with my soldering iron and soldered the wire into the cleaned and tinned plug; not the best place to solder but feasible. Jim

[RatBoy4]

I recently bought a reverse light switch (from Pelican of course) to replace my old one. When I got my oil changed today, I wa going to have the guys replace the switch for me too. They came back and told me that if I were to do that, that I'd need drain the transmission fluid as well. Is this true, or can I just take out the old one and put in the new one?

[Bill Douglas]

I replaced mine by just jacking up (and putting on axel stands) the back end of the car and removing the old one and putting the new one in right away. Very little oil came out. The connectors are a "male" plug in type one that you can get from any electrical type place and connect then to the wires then get a grip on them with a pair of needle nosed pliers and shove them in.