604-543 swap, how to fix neutral start switch?

[87turbodance]

Sounds like you have a few issues unrelated to the 543 you need to clear up before giving a fair comparison. I plan to do with swap because I hate automatic transmissions. My A604 works as well as I could ever expect but there is also a 543 siting in my garage waiting for a ford 7.5 lock spring. I could only imagine wanting to switch back to an auto if I didn't like manual transmissions but then I would have never would have swapped in a manual in the first place.

[c2xejk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tim_K The engine likes to stall a lot when you take the load off of it when coasting down to a stop sign or red light. I'd say about 70% of the time it either stalled or would have stalled if I hadn't tapped the gas pedal to keep it running. That was very annoying. I'm using a 1993 manual transmission V6 SBEC, so why isn't it catching this?

This is because you don't have the speed/distance sensor hooked up... The ECU does not know if you are engine braking or not. Either don't coast down in gear or give the throttle a quick tap when you put the clutch in...

[Boogieman142]

yup, i had that issue untili hooked up the vss, it never stalled on me tho, i also don't do any engine braking, just push in clutch when the rpm start to come down and put in neutral let out clutch and brake. get ur vss hooked up and that'll go away, i gave u directions on that too

[Tim_K]

boogieman - I looked but couldn't find the post where you told me about how to get the VSS hooked up. Can you tell me again about that? Having a working speedometer would be nice.

All the 604 TCM wiring is still in the car, I just put it all in the corner by the TCM computer. Didn't cut or modify anything except for grounding the one wire for the neutral start switch so the starter could work normally.

I played around with the turn signals and hazard lights some more this afternoon. They still both don't work. I made sure their harnesses were plugged into the steering column switch, and checked all the fuses.

I also made sure the relays were all in place.

Don't know what it could be.

[Ondonti]

turn signals and hazard lights dont work because the grounds on the bulbs in your rear lights are bad.

[jmitch]

check out the contacts in the sockets for the brakelight bulbs.
so far i've relpaced every socket in my 93 daytona due to broken contacts.
i was lucky to get a tona from new york (go figure) i'm in bama!
but check em just to be sure

[Boogieman142]

this post here, its in ur text that u wrote for the questions

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boogieman142 here ya go The car is running and on the road now, more or less. Several problems: 1. BIG oil leak on the back side of the engine. I haven't looked yet, but it BETTER be the valve cover and not the head gasket! 2. Neutral start switch still not fixed. I tried using a piece of wire to jumper the neutral start switch connector in every possible combination, and also tried it with a wire to jumper the PRNDL connector right beside it on the transmission at the same time, on the same corner of the case. Nothing worked. The center wire on the 3-wire plug that was on the front of the transmission, its brown/light blue, just run it to ground. If you have cruise and would like to keep it then you will need to put a switch in that circuit, your cruise will only work when the car is not in "neutral". i have a switch under the seat to open this circuit for cruise plus it doubles up as a anti-theft thing, only starts when closed. i did it this way so i do not knock out the thrust bearing upon starting. 3. Clutch cable must be stretched (it WAS a used one, after all), because even with a couple shims down at the transmission end of the cable, the clutch doesn't release until the pedal is nearly to the floor. Mine does the same thing, carry a spare with you. 4. While driving it, I found out that now my turn signals don't work. What does that have to do with anything I was working on? Absolutely nothing, that would be a different issue(well i can't really say that i don't know what you did) 5. Speedometer doesn't work, but I half expected that. Not a big deal at the moment, considering the other problems I have. Thats where i had the biggest issues, i got a pigtail from a car with a vss and extended the wires and wired it into the engine harness, i highly suggest a diagram for this. the vss needs a ground, 8v supply, and the signal output all of these i got from the harness behind the battery and since i had no"grey" plug on my car i had to wire it directly, the ground i got from pin 4 of the pcm, it is black with light blue tracer, the 8v supply i got from pin 7 of the pcm, it is orange, the vss signal i ran to pin 47 it is white with a orange tracer. that corresponds with the same colors of your vss harness pigtail So things could be a lot better. Only good points were that it drove okay when I was on the road, and the key / shifter lockout thing was removed and is not a problem anymore. Anyone got some good ideas for me? BTW, do ur back up lights work, mine didn't even with the reverse switch hooked up to the wires, what i had to do was cut the wire for the rev. lights relay and run it to a ground b/c the ground for it was provided by the tcm and without the auto in it doesn't function. I left all of the auto stuff in the car also, the tcm and the harness are still there. What i did do tho was remove(not break off) the auto shifter, the trans linkage is still there too.

[Tim_K]

Today I was looking at the turn signals and was holding a wire to the side of the bulb with the turn signal on and I grounded the wire. That didn't fix it.

So I started thinking. There's no way a bad ground could make the turn signals and 4 way flashers all quit at once, it has to be a positive power feed problem.

The only wiring I changed in the conversion was the + battery terminal. It goes to the starter, the big grey connector behind the battery, and one other + power connector, and to the transmission speedometer gear, in the case of the new harness.

I looked at the replacement one I put in, it had many more wires going to the grey connector, and in a different pattern. My old one only had 3 wires going to the grey connector.

So I reconnected the + battery terminal, the other + power wire, and the grey connector fron the original wiring harness.

The turn signals and 4 ways work now!

I didn't check the reverse lights, they haven't worked in the 1-3/4 years I've owned this car.

That was the problem. The wiring harness I had put in came from a 1994 4 cylinder 523 gearbox Plymouth Sundance, apparently there's a lot of wiring differences between a 4 and 6 cylinder engine and / or between those 2 model years.

The car is otherwise running good and the clutch and transmission work good, but I still think I'll go back the automatic. I might run it once at the dragstrip as a stick first, though.

[Tim_K]

I just noticed something strange. I had gone back out to the car to check on something. It still has the swapped-in wiring in it.

I noticed that with the 4 way flasher button pushed into its "down" position, the turn signals and brake lights work fine.

With the 4 way flasher button in its "up" position, the brake lights work but the turn signals do not work.

The 4 ways themselves never worked.

But I have the cure, swap the old harness back in. The new one doesn't have a connector for the oil pressure switch anyhow.

[Boogieman142]

if u were to go back to auto i think for sure you would be the first one to, i love mine with a 543 and would never go back to auto, plus i live where it is mountainous and i like being able to control it better

[Ondonti]

unfortunately a bad ground on our cars can kill the flashers and blinkers all at once.

[charger R/T]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tim_K I just noticed something strange. I had gone back out to the car to check on something. It still has the swapped-in wiring in it. I noticed that with the 4 way flasher button pushed into its "down" position, the turn signals and brake lights work fine. With the 4 way flasher button in its "up" position, the brake lights work but the turn signals do not work. The 4 ways themselves never worked. But I have the cure, swap the old harness back in. The new one doesn't have a connector for the oil pressure switch anyhow.

I don't have a diagram for your car but in the early 90 some cars use 1 combo flasher instead of the 2 flashers the others use. If your car uses the 2 flasher set up turning the 4 way switch on will cancel all turn signals. There have been at least 2 threads I have seen that the turn signals didn't work because the person left the 4 ways on and they didn't work. Turn on your turn signals and locate the flasher if it uses just 2 pins there is a second flasher under there somewhere for the 4 ways. If you locate it swap the 2 and see if the 4 ways work. If the flasher you find has more then 2 pins it is called a combo flasher and your 4 way issue is somewhere else.
Tim

[Tim_K]

I pulled out the wiring harness from the 4 cylinder 1994 Sundance 5 speed car (battery positive terminal, big grey connector, starter, speedometer sensor, and one other big + power wire right behind the battery), and reinstalled the original V6 automatic wire, which has less sensors but includes the stock oil pressure light switch.

That fixed the turn signals AND the 4 ways.

I cut out the speedometer sensor plug and its wires from the 5 speed harness, I may wire them into the SBEC connector as was shown in a response to one of my previous posts in this topic. But I'll just run the ground wire to a ground somewhere, I don't think there's any need to tap into another SBEC wire just for that.

The shifter has smoothed out some in the last few days, and it operates with less force now.

And with about 1-1/2" of nuts and washers and other spacers down at the transmission end of the clutch cable, I've got the clutch pedal working more or less properly too.

I'm going to remove 1 of the 1/8" thick washers, though, as I want to make sure there's some free play and the throwout bearing does not always have a constant load on it.

[Ondonti]

I would tap into the wires near the end of the brake booster and then put the ground wire into that spot where the two other ground wires are located behind the stock battery tray.

I have to do this on my spirit to because I pulled out the damaged AA body 3.0 harness and when swapping in this new (used) one I remembered you have to wire up the speed sensor and also the reverse lights.
Of course neither of my cars have a working reverse light :P

[Tim_K]

My reverse lights haven't worked in a long time either. They're really only needed when backing up at night, which isn't all that often for me.