Part 2: PNP Removal

[polskamafia mjl]

...continued from PNP Removal Part 1.

With the plastic connector exposed, use a small screw driver to break off the plastic tabs.

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Spray the inside of the connection box with WD-40 as shown by the arrows and outline.

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Use the small pocket knife and stick it into the very back of the connector box. There is a blue
which must be pressed forwards (towards the front of the car) while at the same time using
channel locks and pulling the front of the box straight up. The blue line designates where to
place the pocket knife while the arrow designates where to put the channel locks and which
way to pull.

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Partially up

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This picture shows a great view of the blue tab that needs to be pushed towards the front of
the car. The arrow is pointing to it.

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With the connectors out of the box, you can break them into 3 separate pieces. The largest
piece, the one I am pointing to, is connected to our PNP switch.

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Using your channel locks, un-screw the center bolt on the PNP switch. It is bolted on lightly so
don’t over tighten it when putting everything back together.

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The last 2 bolts to be undone are the 17mm bolts on the left and right of the PNP switch. The
left one requires a deep socket while the right one is easy to get to.

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PNP Switch Cleaning:

Top of PNP

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Bottom of PNP

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Remove the 6 Phillips head screws on the bottom of the PNP

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Turn over and remove one screw from the top.

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Pry off metal cover carefully.

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VERY CAREFULLY PULL THE SWITCH APART!
If you are not careful you may lose the 3 copper contacts or springs.

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Remove the copper contacts from the arm.
Copper contacts:

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Arm:

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Wipe excess grease from all components. Spray all components with contact cleaner. Once all
parts have been cleaned thoroughly, apply dielectric grease to back of arm. Reassemble
everything carefully. If one or more copper contacts are worn, you may want to grind them
down. Before reassembly make sure to stretch the springs a little bit.

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Stretching springs on a small nail:

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The best method I found for stretching the little springs is to slide a small nail through the spring
and to use your nails at both ends and stretch the spring along the nail. I found that the nail
helps to prevent the spring from becoming deformed and flattened.
Arm w/ Springs. Springs sticking out further than before:

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All cleaned up:

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Arm + Contacts:

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Another note on reassembly: Place the arm with contacts and springs installed as shown in
the picture:

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Once the arm is in, make sure to keep pressure on the arm as the springs will force it up. Next
place the top half of the PNP switch over the bottom half and arm.

Alignment and Reinstallation:
Unfortunately I was not able to use MIJ’s method for alignment. I don’t understand how he
gets the reverse lights to work with the battery out of the car. So, with no other options, I kept
things simple. The Volvo tool aligns the middle bolt with the groove going down the middle of
the PNP housing. So, I decided to get as close to parallel between the 2 w/o using a Volvo
alignment tool. Here is a picture of what I mean.

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So what to do. Put the shifter in Neutral. Align the PNP switch as shown, and screw the
shifter cable down into place. Then bolt the cable arm to the central bolt of the PNP. You
have just aligned and overhauled your PNP switch.
As far as reinstallation goes, remember not to over tighten anything and to make sure the shift
cable bolts are screwed into the same spot they came out of. Otherwise you will need to adjust
shift cable.

This is my first write up. Any critiques, questions, or comments are always welcome! If something here doesn’t make sense, I’ll try to fix it!

- Marcin

[FCPEURO]

This is a fantastic write up. Thank you for putting in the time to put this together.

[cn90]

Great write-up! Thanks!

Questions:
1. How many miles and any symptoms or just preventive maintenance?
2. What is the price of the PNP switch?

[FCPEURO]

You normally need to do this when you get the up arrow or when the car does not seem to want to shift out of park. Not something you would do as preventive maintenance unless you really wanted to.

As for price, the PNP can run between 90 and 160 depending on which manufacture you go with. Here is a link to them below.

http://www.fcpgroton.com/category.php?c ... &do=search

[polskamafia mjl]

Yeah, I used 47ish pictures for this write up and it would olny let me add 24 per thread so I had to make 2 threads. cn90, I have 114K miles and the only problem was a lack of reverse lights. I didn't have the up arrow or any shifting problems. My inspection is coming up in July and I need the reverse lights to pass the inspection.

Edit: Snap! I could have just made 2 posts in the same thread as opposed to making 2 threads. My bad.

[matthew1]

Wow this is a tough nut to crack. I think the best thing is to leave it as two topics, with the first one to remain locked so that discussion remains concentrated here in this topic.

Not your fault, Polska, I need to raise the limit on uploaded files in one post. Really super writeup by the way, thank you.

For the two or three people out there who care about phpBB administration, the basic problem lies in the fact that part 2 has a lower post id than part 1. If the two are merged, it dutifully displays part 2 at the top. I could monkey with the database and try to swap the post id's, but something as central to the phpBB database as post_id is going to have dependencies (like the many uploaded attachments each has), and from my db experience that road will lead to sadness and discomfort.

For the record, I tried splitting part 1 off into its own topic, then "merging topics". Also I tried the same thing but then "merging posts". Same result: part 2 displays above part 1 because of its id.

As for the topic title, that too(!) is giving me trouble. That I can and will change in the db... tomorrow.

[polskamafia mjl]

Sorry! lol I wrote both threads at the same time after I realized that I couldn't fit all the pictures into one post. Then I hit submit on part 2 so I could automatically copy and paste the link at the end of part 1. I really do apologize for not thinking this out better. Like I said before, I relaize now that I could have just made 2 posts in the same thread. lol

[jblackburn]

Not your fault! You took the time to put together a great write-up, your job is done

Whoever wrote the software Matt runs for the site didn't make an option for re-arranging posts, apparently. You'd think we'd have an option for that. Generally I can merge something together and not break it, but it appears in the order it was submitted, which explains why I was so confused about it. So I'll let Matt do what he wants with it, its his site

[polskamafia mjl]

Just an update after a couple days of highway and city driving. The reverse lights are still working as are all of the other gears. In fact I feel like Park is easier to engage and that it "clicks" into place faster. Before, I would put it in park and she would roll a smidge before the parking pawl engaged, but now it seems like I shift into park and it locks right in. This is especially important to me because I used an unorthodox and less precise method for alignment so I'm happy to see everything is working well.

[polskamafia mjl]

Another update. My alignment method isn't as great as I thought. All gears work fine, as do the reverse lights, but I can't start the car in neutral anymore. When I decide to re-align the switch I'll take some more pictures and add them to this write up.

- Marcin

Edit: I found the sweet spot where I can start her in neutral. I have to move the shifter I tiny bit towards D. Looks like I'll have to go back and re-align everything. So a word of caution: My alignment method is not very accurate.