So the other day I loaned someone my truck and they spilled water all over my center console…they told me what happened and they cleaned it all up ….today I got in and the overdrive off light is illuminated on the dash….pressing the button doesn’t shut it off and it won’t shift into overdrive…is it going to be the overdrive switch or just a coincidence?

 

Well you would need the electrical diagram of the od circuit . To see if the od is on when switch is made or off when made (closed contact). It is called an overdrive cancel switch . You can get into console and pull one of the wires to see if your switch is full of water which would short it out .

 

As far as I know, the "OD button" is a normally open / momentary contact button. If I drive home with OD purposefully turned off, or shut the truck off at the "Burger Noodle" drive in while eating supper ... when I next start the OD is now back on. as default is "on". If the case is that the button switch is shorted, than the truck reverts to "OD on" condition (default) when shut off, but a shorted button switch "switched" it back to "OD off" condition upon a restart and any pushing of the button afterwards would have no effect until after the contact is opened (as is the case with a normally unshorted button).

Switch contacts are likely brass, and being as it just happed the other day, likely drying it out will cure it. Swith body is gonna be plastic, likely a small puddle of water in it. You might try a short shot of compressed air directed down ward over the button. If water got into the button switch, it did it from above. Might have pull the switch and with it in hand, held upside down, direct an air jet upon it if indeed they spilled just water. Maybe place it in the sun to hopefully dry it out. NOT IN A MICROWAVE OVEN!

I am reminded of our Ford Crown Vic police cars and the aggrevation of traction control in patrol / pursuit work, the button to deactivate TC was a dash mounted momentary contact button, upon restart the car defaulted to "TC on". There was a jumper wire in the glove box that could be substituted for the switch so that each time the car was started, the car thought the button was pushed and reverted to "TC off" but no means of release meant no subsequent pushes to get TC back, for like snow. I put a toggle switch in mine then so I could reactivate TC at will. Each flip from closed to open and then from open to closed while the car was running was like a button press. Leaving it closed had the same effect of a push button press at each start up.

It is the momentary contact after a period of no contact that triggers a signal to switch from on to off ... or ... from off to on. When you use the button, there is no time limit once you put your finger on the button and press. Granny might hold it pressed for three or four times as long as Junior .. with there being no difference as the actual switch in condition was made at the moment of contact in a normally open line. .

 

tbear853 Seems to know how this works . I would dry it out slowly no heat gun or hot hair dryer ,you can use a hair dryer just be careful not to get it too hot.

Another trick is to put it in dry rice over night it will suck up moisture. Upside down on dashboard in the sun may work .

 

yes I drove crown Vics from 2001 until they pried mine out of my hands in 2019 …those switches were on the column shift…this truck has the button on the console shifter…I easily popped the console apart and am letting the switch dry out …if not I will replace the switch and hope for the best

 

Yeah, the OD button is on the shift lever. I was talking about traction control. Back in the early '80s was a young high school aged girl worked after school at a local resturaunt where we Troopers, some Deputies ans local Officers met and ate evening meals. She graduated and soon joined the State Police too. I just saw a post where she was now a Master Trooper and they just a few days ago retired her 2010 CV, I understand she was not really happy but she did get a new larger suv. I had three CVs before retiring, loved them.. Take Care .....

 

I was thinking you could pull one of the wires off to see if it fixes your problem as well as you could ohm the switch out and toggle it . Good test to see in case you have further trouble with it . That will give you an in depth knowledge . Hopefully it will dry out and not act up .