3sp column shift backup light switch replacement

[farside847]

I just thought I would share in case this might help the next guy doing
this job.

To be honest, it was a real pain. I got a new switch in the mail and took
a look at it and it seems simple enough. The unit bolts on with two small
bolts right onto the column under the dash near the firewall. Taking the
old one off was easy and I saw that the little black plastic lever had broken
off. The whole switch was blackened so I wanted to replace it instead of
fixing it.

The new one looked identicle, but did not fit perfectly. These switches mount
to a metal bracket that is easily bent and therefore it can really tweak itself
into the wrong position. I installed the switch 25 times! Every time it did not
quite work right. Sometimes the light would not come on in reverse. Sometimes
it would come on and not go out when taken out of gear. But if you wiggled
it it would turn off.

Finally I took a dremmel tool and widened the two bolt holes on the mounting
bracket so I could adjust its placement more and got it to work correctly.
For some reason the switch needed to more more to the right than the
original bracket would allow. Once I could slide it over another 1/8th of an
inch it worked perfectly.

A 10 minute job turned into a 5 hour pain, so I thought it deserved a rant

[70 shorty]

Don't you hate stuff like that? And now if you had to do it over again, it would only take you that 10 minutes even having to enlarget the mounting holes.

[74KDD]

I have a question about the installation of the new switch (I too have struggled with the installation).

When you installed the switch, did you insert the little metal rod (from the steering column) "into" the little black square sliding switch, or "beside" the little black square? I guess the little metal rod is what moves the sliding switch, when shifting into reverse. Did you position it "into" or "beside" the sliding mechanism?