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Intermittent reversing lights

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Intermittent reversing lights

Postby blairtron » Mon Dec 15, 2014 4:59 pm

Reversing lights on my Mu are quite temperamental and have a severe dislike of switching on when the car (read: trans) is cold. Sometimes giving the gear selector a bit of a wiggle in the R slot entices them to come on, but not consistently. Lights (and thus beeper) always turn on when reverse is engaged if I've been driving the thing for a while, and usually work fine on a warm day even if the car's been parked up for most of it, such as while I'm at work.

Beeper always comes on with the lights, reverse gear itself works fine

Suspect it's a switch on the side of the gearbox, but I don't know which one it would be. What should I be looking for on the side of the 'box (pictures would be helpful)? Need the bastards working for wof retest next week :evil:

ta


92 2.8, 30-40LE/4L30-E 4 speed auto
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Re: Intermittent reversing lights

Postby geeves » Mon Dec 15, 2014 6:53 pm

If its like my wizard its the inhibitor switch and its a octupus of a design. There are 2 metal parts held together with a lot of wire. One parts in the shifter inside the car the other in the auto. 4 years ago I entrusted this repair to a local auto sparky who talked me into a much cheaper reconditioned switch as mine was also causing trouble starting (there is still a length of wire under the seat that reaches between battery and solinoid) Its now playing up again.
Also if its like mine it only plays up when the gearbox is cold. Unfortunately you drop the car off and it may sit some time before he does the test. My wof guy is good as he was happy to pass it on recheck after two trips round the block
(hes not always that nice He failed my bighorn because the standards labels on the side windows are unreadable. Some previous owner was a little energetic polishing. It took me 20 minutes to find them)
Sanding your knuckles before starting work can help. That way you cant skin them
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Re: Intermittent reversing lights

Postby blairtron » Sat Dec 20, 2014 5:01 pm

Yeah, it only plays up when trans is cold. Once it's warmed up it works fine.

This is the inhibitor switch, yes? Front drivers side of trans, tucked behind exhaust and driveshaft for transfer box
Image

Do I have to remove both visible nuts or just the larger, main one that has the post poking out of it? I don't think my long, spindly fingers are going to enjoy this :(
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Re: Intermittent reversing lights

Postby geeves » Sun Dec 21, 2014 5:17 am

pass
I let auto sparky do mine
Sanding your knuckles before starting work can help. That way you cant skin them
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Re: Intermittent reversing lights

Postby Hamdog » Mon Dec 22, 2014 9:09 am

im in the same boat as you, mines been playing up quite a bit lately so been trying to research how to attack it. cant afford to put a new one in at the moment so was going to pull it off in a few weeks and clean it up and put it back in and hope for the best since my wof is due soon.
if you get it done before i do can you do a write up on removing it ? seems like quite a common problem and would be good to have some sort of instructions for everyone
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Re: Intermittent reversing lights

Postby PaladinAus1 » Mon Dec 22, 2014 10:06 pm

I was under the impression the reverse sensor was a micro switch on the side of the shifter. My reverse lights/buzzer sensor has never worked, but I had issues with the inhibitor switch on the gearbox, removed it, cleaned it up and re greased it and it hasn't played up since. *touch wood.

It didn't have any effect on the reverse lights/buzzer.
Last edited by PaladinAus1 on Tue Dec 23, 2014 10:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Intermittent reversing lights

Postby geeves » Tue Dec 23, 2014 5:39 am

They are both parts of the same switch. It also controls the display on the dash but theres magic involved in that bit.
Mine currently works fine warm but cold the reverse lights / beeper/rev light on dash do not work. Sometimes all 3 start working a few seconds into the reverse. I have seen it fail to display park once but it still started that time.
The old sensor did the same in reverse but park had got so intermittent and without the park indicator on you couldnt turn the key to start. I kept a piece of wire under the passenger seat to bridge between the battery and solinoid to start. Often though wrigling the selector stick while turning the key would start the car
Sanding your knuckles before starting work can help. That way you cant skin them
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Re: Intermittent reversing lights

Postby blairtron » Wed Dec 24, 2014 6:08 pm

Hamdog wrote:if you get it done before i do can you do a write up on removing it ?

Getting it off is simple in theory - whack off both the bolt and nut that you can see in my photo, pull the switch housing off, pop it open and regrease etc. Be aware the exhaust and forward prop shaft will do their best to piss you off, if you have big hands you might want to consider dropping the prop shaft first! Disconnect your battery beforehand also, don't want to give yourself a shock now do you :D

Mine was (is) so resistant to being pulled off that I gave up and drove around for half an hour before dropping it off for the wof retest. :lol:

I had a feel around and couldn't find any other bolts I would have needed to remove, with just the two whizzed off I could jiggle it back and forth quite a bit but simply couldn't pull the thing off. Unfortunately I didn't have anything in my toolset that I could have used to prise it off so I was trying to use my hands to do it - couldn't get anywhere near enough leverage :x trans was in neutral while doing it, that didn't help
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Re: Intermittent reversing lights

Postby geeves » Wed Dec 24, 2014 7:23 pm

went hunting the books and found this

modesw1.jpg


modesw2.jpg
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Sanding your knuckles before starting work can help. That way you cant skin them
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Re: Intermittent reversing lights

Postby Hamdog » Sat Feb 14, 2015 5:55 am

PaladinAus1 wrote:I was under the impression the reverse sensor was a micro switch on the side of the shifter. My reverse lights/buzzer sensor has never worked, but I had issues with the inhibitor switch on the gearbox, removed it, cleaned it up and re greased it and it hasn't played up since. *touch wood.

It didn't have any effect on the reverse lights/buzzer.


From what I found that micro switch activates the thing when you press the brake peddle it let's you move the selector from park
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Re: Intermittent reversing lights

Postby Hamdog » Mon Mar 16, 2015 5:01 pm

well my inhibitor switch is working much much better now, ive taken it for quite a few river crossings and since then it just gets better and better after each time, i used to have to drive for about an hour for it to start working , now i just have to drive 5 mins down the road :) not a complete fix but it has improved it
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Re: Intermittent reversing lights

Postby Brinky » Tue Dec 07, 2021 7:42 am

I pulled the reversing light switch off my 1996 Bighorn which looks like the photo above. Bit of a pain to get it off and take your time. Make sure you polish up the small rectangular shaft in the middle of the aluminum housing with 22mm nut before you ease the switch off the transmission. I also removed the front drive shaft to make more room. Remove all the cable ties and pull the switch over the top of the trans and into the engine bay where you can see which plug to undo. Once opened you can see its the old grease inside the switch which has gone hard and prevents the spring loaded plates making contact. A quick clean up, regrease then reassemble. Now I just need to work out how to add a photo of the inside of the switch. The pdf docs above are not the correct ones for the switch in the photo above by Blairtron.
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