09/02/02

In an attempt to fix my reverse lights, I managed to completely break the neutral safety switch on my AW4 transmission. The AW4 Neutral Safety Switch, also known as the Transmission Range Sensor, defaults to "D" from what I can tell, which would mean that if this switch breaks, the car will not start! This is the exact problem I had.

A lot of people suggested rebuilding it but I broke the switch completely--it wasn't salvagable. Instead, I did something that was much easier and took about three minutes. I cut the wiring harness near the switch and pulled the wiring up through the engine bay and connected the #7 and #8 wires as described below. This effectively tells your Jeep that you are in neutral all the time. Beware that your Jeep will start in D, R, 3, 2/1 now! I don't really see that this should be a problem but it is recommended that you do not start the vehicle still, unless in P or N.

From some research I have done, the car does not use this Neutral Safety Switch for anything except for a) allowing you to start the ignition and b) triggering the reverse lights. As a result, "hot wiring" the switch as described should not hurt the vehicle's operation. The only problem I have run into so far is that this throws a code. I am still working on figuring out how to jump the wires in order t moake this go away.



AW4 Neutral Safety Switch Wiring Diagram aka AW4 Neutral Safety Switch Schematics

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