Okay, i had a really hard time getting my head around this problem.
What wasn’t sinking in was the fact that the Neutral Safety Switch is located on the PASSENGER SIDE of the trans.
Jim tried to explain it and it was mentioned in a video i found, and another forum post, but because i had started there and saw no wiring i was in doubt. Finally, though it’s NOT SHOWN ANYWHERE IN THE TOYOTA SCHEMATIC BOOK, i looked closely enough to find it on the trans.

So today, I was convinced I was going to fix this. I got out and put the rig in the garage and decided after unbolting the trans cooler that i would waterblast some of the goo away so i could actually touch things. Here is a “before blasting” photo

 

Omg! I can why you didn’t notice it😂

It would have been helpful if Toyota had put the 84223 and the 84540 in the same parts diagram. Counterman Bitd got tricked by that every now and then.

 

Water blasting out in the driveway worked pretty well, until the project turned into a critical mission when i stepped on my eyeglasses that i had taken off and put on the ground well out of harm’s way(i thought). Then had to go disassemble, straighten and reconstruct them. Surprisingly, that worked out ok. After blasting




Side note, one of my biggest problems working on cars now is eyesight. I can only see close about 1 ft from my nose with no glasses and my normal glasses make things worse up close. Everything i am trying to see while under the car is about arm’s lengthaway. More on that shortly.

So after moving the trans cooler out of the way, i went to the 12mm nut on the selector shaft. Having grown up working on rusty old cars, there’s a feeling you just know sometimes that the object you are trying to take apart is not going to cooperate. And it will probably be destroyed in the process. I already searched the internet and found no new replacement neutral safety switches for 87 4runners, so if i gank this up, i am going to have to find a used one.

There is no earthly explanation for how tight this nut and lockwasher were on the selector shaft. For a moment i was sweating because it felt like it might break off, but ultimately it did unthread from the shaft. Home free, right? Now i just have to remove the NSS from the shaft and disassemble it.




After about an hour and a half of trying to get it off the shaft, gently and more forcefully prying, it comes to about 3/8ths of an inch from the end of the shaft but stops dead from coming fully off.

After about another half hour of contemplation i finally get my face close enough to focus on the thing and notice the shaft itself is twisted!


And after slighly bending this cooler line, it cracks and starts leaking! Never, ever, ever, buy a car from Vermont!

 

So now i am at a critical juncture.
Cannot get the NSS off the shaft without further damage.
if i destroy it, i will have to push the truck around the yard because the Beach Truck sleeps in the garage. I will have to buy a used replacement from someone on FB out west.
In two days we’re going on a family vacation and i won’t be back until March 17. So either way, it will be sitting until then.
So i decide to reverse course and reassemble it hoping it still works and i can move the truck with the leaky cracked line.
I am successful in putting it back together well enough to start and drive out of the garage.

 

Somewhere in my internet searchs about this trans i discovered a wiki page that said they were also used in Jeeps. Turns out a NSS for a 1987 Cherokee is much easier to get and looks to be about the same form factor.

This has 5 wires and the Toyota has only 4, i think. But it’s cheap enough that i’ll buy one just for yucks. Maybe i can rewire it or use it for parts because it’s likely mine will be damaged taking it apart to clean it. I already went through that with the other switch i thought was the NSS.

So what i think i am going to do is try heating and twisting that shaft back into alignment. That should work fine…
will i have to drop the trans to get access to it? I don’t know.

As i had to take the Beach Truck for inspection the other day,(this is an annual thing in MASS)
i asked the dude if i could just put a switch on the dash for backup lights. After thinking about it for a while he said no, but anything that switches on automatically would be ok. So if there is any way to hook up a simple switch like on a Hurst 4speed or something like that, i’d be game.

Another thought, grind the high edges on the shaft with a Dremel just enough to allow the NSS to release from the shaft. I think i am liking this idea best…least risk, least destructive.

Another thought, try straightening out the twist with the idea that if it should break off, i’ll just weld the shift arm on to the shaft.

 

Wow, quite the adventure, all you wanted was the backup lights to work! Personal opinion on that twisted shaft is, I'd get a file in there and file it flat on both sides, I think trying to untwist it is going to snap it off.

 

yeah, i agree. There are 4 conical aluminum fingers that grip down on the shaft and as you can see in the photo, they dont flex, and two of them are already broken (from me trying to open them a little!) but at this point the 22mm nut will still thread on.

 

Finally back at it this evening. The Dremel idea worked pretty well. When working on cars, i always think “first, do no harm”. I put the nut on in case the threads got boogered during grinding the high edges of the stud. A bit of prying was required but then the switch finally released from the shaft.


I had just siphoned some questionable fuel out of the snowblowers. How convenient.

Outside looking cleaner

There’s the goo. Looks like used motor oil mixed with dielectric grease.

Cleaned up the contacts with some 1000 grit paper.

Testing before final installation.

It works! In the morning, i’ll take a run to the parts store and get a piece of tubing to replace that cracked trans line and we’ll finally get another shot at state inspection.

 

Well done👍🏼😊

 

Wow, that selector switch was filthy, great job cleaning it up and getting it off there without further damage.

 

There was still the matter of that cracked, leaking rusted tranny line.



I cut it with an angle grinder and used a 17 mm box end wrench to remove the fitting and take it with me to the parts store.

Autozone - nope. Met expectations.But i bought a short length of 3/8 line with wrong fittings.
NAPA - nope. Met expectations. Try O’Reilly, a half hour away?
O’Reilly- nope. Did not meet expectation. They told me of a magical hardware store another 20 minutes away that might have fittings with metric threads.

I decided I had wasted enough time and would go home and try to remove the rusted piece of line from the fitting, use the 3/8” line i bought at Autozone with this original metric fitting since it is the only one in New England apparently. Yay, more microsurgery.

Now back to the “first do no harm” thing…the tubing is not moving inside the fitting due to rust. I tried holding the fitting in a vice and driving the tubing out with a hammer and punch, but that only deformed the tubing. About a half hour of that and i decided to try the map gas torch, panther piss, and an easy out to grip it. That got it moving enough and i was able to drive the tubing out with a bolt.




Then i was able to use the existing flare on the 3/8 line with this fitting and install it. To my surprise, no leaks!

 

Lastly, the Jeep Neutral Safety Switch arrived yesterday and i took it apart to see if it had the same contact pattern. The physical dimensions are the same so it would bolt up, but has more wires than the Toyota unit.
So while it appears the cheap Jeep unit could be used for parts to rebuilt the Toyota unit, more investigation is needed to determine if it can be substituted.




It appears the Toyota unit can still be bought through Amayama.com for >$100.