Part 2: PNP Removal

Post by **osman** » 22 Oct 2012, 19:23

In addition to doing the job without disconnecting the wiring harness, I use an 22mm O2 sensor socket instead of channel locks to remove the nut on top of the pnp sensor. I can do the whole thing in under two hours now. I love this site.

Post by **polskamafia mjl** » 24 Nov 2012, 19:52

turbozutek wrote:I've never understood the song and dance about alignment either. You put the switch on the shaft with all the lines aiming towards the stamping on the switch housing. If it's out of alignment the lines don't match up by eye - it's really, really easy.

That's it. I've done this almost 10 times with various 850's and s70's and I've never once thought about using a tool to help. If anyone reading this is put off doing this job by the scary looking 'alignment phase', don't be: it's piss simple!

Have you tried starting in neutral? After eyeing it up when I did it my reverse lights worked fine but I couldn't start in neutral anymore. The switch was misaligned just enough so everything else worked but the engine wouldn't start in neutral.

Post by **cn90** » 13 Dec 2012, 19:45

Quick question,

I understand this is a relatively easy fix.

Has anyone here had an irreparable issue and has to buy a new PNP switch, which is about $130 at Volvo dealer:
http://www.trademotion.com/parts/index. ... eid=216970

Post by **cn90** » 23 Dec 2012, 08:34

I will add some photos hoping to help someone.

1. Note during removal, the bolts for the shift cable are centered in the oval slots.
If you pay attention to this, there will be no need to adjust the shifter cable later.
(But you need to check the shifter later anyway to be sure P is P, R is R, D is D etc.).

2. Note that I left the PNP attached to its connector.
One less step to worry about.
Note the gasket, do NOT lose it!

3. Note that the copper U-clip is mounted on a vise-grip to be filed straight and square.

: VolvoPNP01.JPG (142.99 KiB) Viewed 2634 times

: VolvoPNP02.JPG (121.77 KiB) Viewed 2634 times

: VolvoPNP03.JPG (43.8 KiB) Viewed 2634 times

Post by **erikv11** » 23 Dec 2012, 09:47

cn90 wrote:I will add some photos hoping to help someone.

1. Note during removal, the bolts for the shift cable are centered in the oval slots.
If you pay attention to this, there will be no need to adjust the shifter cable later.
(But you need to check the shifter later anyway to be sure P is P, R is R, D is D etc.).
...

The concept is great here but the nuts will not all be in the same place on different cars. That is, they will not always be in the center. So the key is to put them back where they started, not to put them in the center. As suggested elsewhere in this thread, before you start use a Sharpie and draw an outline around the nuts.

Post by **cn90** » 23 Dec 2012, 10:33

polskamafia mjl wrote:
turbozutek wrote:...Have you tried starting in neutral? After eyeing it up when I did it my reverse lights worked fine but I couldn't start in neutral anymore. The switch was misaligned just enough so everything else worked but the engine wouldn't start in neutral.

Hey polskamafia mjl,

This is too funny. I have the exact same issue but I will not lose sleep over it: opened the PNP switch to fix "no reverse light". Put everything back. Everything else works just fine: P, R, N, D etc.
Start perfect in P but not in N.

Personally I do not care because I have never needed to start the car in N in 15 years driving Volvo.
But I'd be curious to know where the issue is.

Post by **erikv11** » 23 Dec 2012, 12:40

cn90 wrote:
polskamafia mjl wrote:...Have you tried starting in neutral? After eyeing it up when I did it my reverse lights worked fine but I couldn't start in neutral anymore. The switch was misaligned just enough so everything else worked but the engine wouldn't start in neutral.
...
I have the exact same issue ... opened the PNP switch ... Everything else works just fine: P, R, N, D etc. Start perfect in P but not in N.
...
I'd be curious to know where the issue is.

Hey cn90 (or anyone), comments welcome:

As polkskamafia stated a misaligned switch is of course that is the most likely issue, but cn90 just dismisses it so I am curious, what else are you thinking is going on here? Maybe you sanded the contacts too short or didn't properly clean a track or something? Can't see it being anything other than the switch is misaligned.

I will need to do another PNP rehab once it gets warm enough to go in there, want to make sure I have everything covered.

Post by **polskamafia mjl** » 01 Jan 2013, 03:40

I like having my car work the way its supposed to. I agree most times there is no reason to worry about whether it will start in neutral or not, I just prefer having things work the way they were meant to. I still believe some precision should be used when aligning the switch. Everyone is free to use their own judgement however.

Post by **precopster** » 01 Jan 2013, 05:51

The other day I had two PNPs in front of me, a 850 '96 GLT that had been pulled from a low mileage transmission at around 70K miles and a PNP from a 960. I was supposed to have cleaned the 960 PNP but instead the brain went foggy and I opened up and cleaned out the 850 one. It had near perfect straight copper contacts and the grease looked OK so I cleaned it up, retensioned the springs and put some new grease inside.

By contrast the wife's '95 850 PNP was toast earlier this year at 82K miles with steeply worn coppers that had to be filed back quite a lot. It worked brilliantly after the clean with reverse lights being restored and no more flashing arrow and stuck in first syndrome. It got me thinking that Volvo must have either overtightened the wife's one, or used a different supplier or perhaps these things just wear out markedly once the grease inside goes stale and crusty.

Post by **cn90** » 14 Mar 2013, 07:22

polskamafia mjl wrote:I like having my car work the way its supposed to. I agree most times there is no reason to worry about whether it will start in neutral or not, I just prefer having things work the way they were meant to. I still believe some precision should be used when aligning the switch. Everyone is free to use their own judgement however.

I finally have a little time to play with this "no crank in N" issue.
- Remove Air Filter Housing: 2 min.
- Remove battery and battery tray: 2 min.

I played with the adjustment 13-mm bolts to adjust the cable to all kinds of extreme: all the way to the front and back and anything in between, roughly 10 different settings: guess what, car does not crank in Neutral.

Then I discovered that (same observation as someone else earlier) that if I leave the shifter in "N" but push it just a tiny bit forward (still in the "N" slot but at the forward limit of it), then the engine crank! Try and you will see.

I do not have the starting circuit in front of me, but I wonder if the neutral start circuit is somewhere below the shifter itself (rather than on the PNP switch).

As I mentioned before, I never used this feature (crank in neutral) in my 14 years of ownership.
However there may be a rare exception: if you are on highway and engine stalls, and you want to re-start engine ASAP, so you would shift to neutral to start. So I can see this feature useful in very rare situation.

Part 2: PNP Removal

Re: Part 2: PNP Removal