The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Neutral Safety Switch

I'm in a bad situation here.

I bought a 1966 chevy step-side truck from a person out of state and now i'm discovering all kinds of problems. I'd like to get my truck "up-to-code" so i can get it registered and inspected before the police start issuing me tickets. =(

It has the following modifications:
* 350 cu in chevy engine w/ a 350TH.
* steering column out of a (supposedly) 1993 full-sized chevy pickup.

My reverse lights do not work and I'd like to fix them.
I took the neutral safety switch off my column (thinking that might be the problem) and i've discovered that the pics of the parts on the internet arent like the part i pulled off my truck.

my safety switch has 4 prongs and the part shown on the internet has 5 prongs. yikes!

i then looked for a pic of a neutral safety switch that looks like mine and the closest thing i could find was a 1980 camaro--tho it has 5 prongs as well. if you look it up, it has a black body with a white plastic tab extending below the middle.

Again, my Neutral Safety Switch has 4 prongs and the closest thing i can find has 5 prongs.

Should i worry about the 5th prong? argh!!


Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,


Tom
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Mechttu,

Welcome to the Stovebolt. You have two problems listed. No back-up lights and confusion about the neutral safety switch.

These comments are sort of generic because I'm not well schooled in the '93 steering column. The neutral starter safety switch should merely interrupt the power from START (key) to solenoid when the shifter isn't in neutral. This is a simple set of contacts inside the switch that can be verified with a ohmmeter. It should only represent two 'prongs'...a power (START) in and a switched power out to the solenoid.

The additional terminals were probably associated with some other device on the '93 truck, for your switch you would only need 2.

There should be another switch for reverse lights. It would do exactly the same thing switch wise except it would be tied to the back-up lights. It would be OPEN whenever the rig wasn't in reverse.

If you have a small multimeter with a resistance (ohm) function, you can check the operation of these little switches. I thought I remembered a transmission mounted switch on the Turbo-350 but I might be wrong.

Stuart

well, with my 350/350TH conversion, i thought the neutral safety switch and the reverse lights operated thru the same switch--located at the base of the steering column. do they not?

if not, then could you push me in the right direction as to where the reverse lights switch is located?


Thanks,


Tom

I had/have the same situation on my '65 step-side. I put in a switch with 4 prongs---2 for rev. lights and 2 for neutral safety
switch. Both worked long enough to pass inspection, but switch (bottom of steering column--column from a 1972 chev truck) moves
after some use causing reverse lights to be on when they should not be and truck not start in park etc. I've had three in now and just leave the reverse lights hooked up. but the four prong switch is correct for both uses.
Jim