[Shotimes] interesting electrical bug

[Kevin & Cheryl Airth]

Jason:
 On a ATX SHO to shift out of park with non-working brake lights. Turn the
ignition key on and then one click back towards off. You want the steering
wheel unlocked but no dash lights on. Now shift to neutral and start the
car. You can shift anywhere you want now but the next time you go into park
you must repeat the above procedure.

Sorry you had to do all that extra work  and waste time in traffic!!

Try it sometime, you can hold the car with the parking brake if needed while
you move the shifter. All ATX people should keep this little trick in mind.
But DON'T drive around this way with no brake lights. Your asking to be rear
ended!!
.
.



> Ran into an interesting problem on the way home from the exchange today.
> I noticed when I shifted out of park that the shift interlock was very
> stubborn and I had to push my brake pedal in a ways before it worked. No
> biggie. I noticed, however, that while I was backing up, my brake lights
> weren't coming on at all. Having had dealings with the brake light
> sensor switch before, I figured it was simply either too loose or had
> fallen off the pedal somehow. No big deal, I said, I'll fix it when I
> get home. So I get to the next light, one intersecting a major road in
> the area, Hampton Blvd outside of the Sub gate (for those in the know).
> Then I did probably the dumbest thing I could have at the time: I
> shifted into park.
>
> What had happened was that one of the wires (the positive, I'm gonna
> guess, from the shower of sparks it produced when I touched some steel
> with it)(zapped the **** out of me, too heh) had broken off outside the
> metal prong that's on the end of it, so the wire end was still firmly
> attached to the switch but the wire was just hanging free. Crap. I can't
> shift out of park to save my life, and the light turns green. I turn my
> hazards on and tell people to go around. Then I get out of the car and
> get my flashlight to try to get at the switch when I realize my
> flashlight broke into little pieces when I threw it in the car when I
> had bent one of my control arms in the back from being a friggin' idiot.
> Crap. Why does this stuff *always* happen at night?
>
> I end up using the LED lights on my phone for a flashlight (fortunately,
> my phone, a Sanyo VM4500, has 4 really bright white LCDs for that
> purpose), and with a set of wire cutter/strippers, a spool of 12ga wire
> I for some reason happened to have in my trunk, and a dremel (with power
> inverter), I got to work. Keeping in mind that my door now opens into
> oncoming traffic, and it's one lane, and if I get hit there is no way in
> hell I'm gonna survive - my head would get taken right off - I drill a
> hole in each little tab on the switch with my dremel, slot the 12ga wire
> through (it fits perfectly, strangely enough lol) and hook it through,
> take the wire from the car and splice it in with the other side. Voila!
> who needs that stupid connector anyway.
>
> So, the moral of the story is: anybody have a spare brake pressure
> sensor connector handy?
>
> Jason
>
> and I thought 6 months of electronics training was a complete waste...