67 Powerglide Neutral Safety Switch Solution Needed

[Paul S.]

My 67 Powerglide Neutral Safety Switch is becoming unreliable--I had it worked on almost 4 years ago and it would start in park and neutral. Now it won't start in neutral and when in park, you have to wiggle the shifter back and forth to get it to allow the car to start.

Backup lights work fine, and my question now is, what's the current best solution, as I know the neutral safety switch hasn't been available as a replacement part for a long time. Anyone make the 67 Camaro neutral safety switch work (those are available)? And how do you go about it?

I could take it back to Corvette Corner in Rowlette Texas and let them work on it again, but since I've got the console out of the car, part of me wants to fix it myself.

[Leif A.]

Re: 67 Powerglide Neutral Safety Switch Solution Needed

Give David Sokolowski a call...he'll have one for you. He advertises heavily in the Driveline.

[Gary J.]

Re: 67 Powerglide Neutral Safety Switch Solution Needed

I just went through this. Echlin 6172 is the part number you need, you can buy it off of eBay or NAPA. You will need to disconnect the shifter to get it out. Put some leads on the terminals in the new switch and splice into the old one. You will need to bend the terminals down to lay flat on the switch to work. Pay attention to the old switch wiring as the switch also controls the back up lamps.

[Joe L.]

Re: 67 Powerglide Neutral Safety Switch Solution Needed

My 67 Powerglide Neutral Safety Switch is becoming unreliable--I had it worked on almost 4 years ago and it would start in park and neutral. Now it won't start in neutral and when in park, you have to wiggle the shifter back and forth to get it to allow the car to start.

Backup lights work fine, and my question now is, what's the current best solution, as I know the neutral safety switch hasn't been available as a replacement part for a long time. Anyone make the 67 Camaro neutral safety switch work (those are available)? And how do you go about it?

I could take it back to Corvette Corner in Rowlette Texas and let them work on it again, but since I've got the console out of the car, part of me wants to fix it myself.

Paul------


A Standard Motor Products #NS7 is supposed to be a direct replacement. I have not been able to absolutely confirm that, though.

[Gary J.]

Re: 67 Powerglide Neutral Safety Switch Solution Needed



Here is switch that I referenced night. As you can see the terminals are straight out vs the original which lays flat. Just lay these down as much as possible, it will work. Another thought is IF your housing is not broken you could loosen the metal ears and use the center slider that fits into shifter. When you blow the first picture up you will see where the shifter fits in the slot and slides. Hopes this helps. BTW the switch can be bypassed.

[Paul S.]

Re: 67 Powerglide Neutral Safety Switch Solution Needed

I'm back, and I bought both the Echlin NS6172 switch as pictured by Gary (the new one looks just like Gary's pictures so I did not post it) and the Standard Motor Products #NS7 posted by Joe which I could not post here for some reason, and they're not the same, but more importantly, now that I have the shifter off the car for the life of me I cannot see how either switch would be properly positioned if screwed to the two holes at the top of my shifter. I also see mine doesn't have the tab at the bottom to engage in the switch, instead someone before me put a pin in there, or is that right for a 67?.

As you can see from the photo of the existing switch that's bad, the pin on the bottom of the shifter fits in the hole of the switch and the switch itself has longer right angled tabs that screw to the two holes in the shifter housing.

And I looked at a an old article by Dave Zuberer of a 65 powerglide restoration that had pictures including the neutral safety switch and it looks like it's got the longer right angled tabs like my existing switch (which isn't correct for the Corvette unless the 67's did away with the tab on the end of the shifter and put in the black pin.

Need some thoughts, one of which is if I wanted to bypass the neutral safety switch and perhapsput in a toggle switch under the dash, can I do that and which wires? I'm guessing it's the purple and purple with white stripe wire. Is that right?

And how do you make either of the new switches work (which is my preference, as I'd hate to run without one) and is there a wiring diagram of which wire goes to which pole of the new switches? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Paul S.]

Re: 67 Powerglide Neutral Safety Switch Solution Needed

Addendum to my post--after doing a lot of reading, I've discovered some people are able to use the guts of the new switches with the existing switch's backing plate, but I don't think that's going to work for me, because my current switch has a different pin set up from the stock switch. It seems like what may be in there, including the pin replacing the tab on the shifter, looks very much like a kit that Long Island Corvette used to sell as part 32-48C, but the pictures don't show the terminal layout. So who knows?

This much I know--the current switch's wire connection layout is different from the stock 66-67 powerglide neutral safety switch, and I've very hesitant to destroy my current bad switch which works fine for the back up lights, and end up with a bigger problem.

Also not too keen on paying upwards of $500 or more for an NOS switch someone has and then finding the long gone tab parts from the bottom of the shifter. I see Shiftworks sells a complete shifter for $500 including the switch that's supposed to be a direct fit, although not sure because they've posted you may have to tear down the tranny to replace some parts.

So I'm quickly warming up to the idea of of bypassing the switch. How would I do that? I know it's a poor solution--can I just put in a toggle switch that I manually throw when starting the car, and switch off after it starts, or even more simply tie the two purple wires together permanently? I'm asking because I don't know whether that connection should only be live when you're starting, etc...