Furyous68

I actually saw this question on a thread posted a couple of years ago, but no one answered it.

I have a '68 Fury and a few years back I brought it to a mechanic who was well known for his electrical expertise. My reverse lights were not coming on. He pulled the reverse light switch and told me if I could find a new one he would put it on, and that it was definitely was the culprit.

Fast forward a few years and I am doing an electrical and cosmetic restoration of my dash, including the steering column and found a reverse light switch in my bin of parts accumulated from EBay over time. While I found where it is mounted, apprently there is a threaded hole on the gear selector shaft on the steering column that attached to some kind of linkage to the pin on the switch. That piece is missing. Anybody know what this is called so that I can look for it, or has anyone ever fabricated one of these for their Mopar to get the lights working correctly again?

440roadrunner

Assuming you have an auto gearbox, the neutral safety switch and backup switch should be combined in a single 3 terminal unit, which treads into the Torqueflite



the blue arrow:

Furyous68

Thank you, but I'm not talking about the neutral safety switch. It is the back up light switch at the base of the steering column. This is the switch that activates the back up lights when the column is shofted into reverse.

Furyous68

A side note- My mechanic took the switch out- I'll post pics of it tomorrow. I believe they used this until 1967, but my 68 is an early one with window cranks and door lock ferrules from 1967, showing that they used whatever was left over from the '67s in Belvedere. I can only assume this is another leftover, but I wonder if the neutral safety switch will work in its place, but I still have the pigtail where it connects to the wiring harness in the dash.

440roadrunner

My mistake, I thought the switch was integrated in '68

Furyous68

No problem, It is weird how they did it- you would think that Ma Mopar would have integrated it into the neutral safety switch. Below is a picture of the switch.

That leads me to my next question- Why can't I convert it to the 3 pin neutral safety switch? Seems like it would be much more reliable and easy. i would have to connect the pigtail in the dash to the unit by running wire through the firewall, but it would be the cheapest and easiest way to get my reverse lights working again. The neutral safety/backup light switch works with all 727 and 904 trannys, so why not?

I'm gonna look into this further. I should be able to pick up a '69 and later switch at Advance.

440roadrunner

If you have the original transmission, the internal actuating mechanism, called the comb, probably would not operate the switch.

TVLynn

Earlier models The trans switch only had one terminal For neutral

1968polara383

Hi,

How are you getting on with this problem? Im having exactly the same issue with my 68 polara! My switch is ok but i cant see how the red toggle can possibly fit into the column. Obvious from your post that the column is threaded and im missing an adaptor that goes between the column and the switch. Did you find one?

Thanks, Steve