The little button on the end of my gearshift handle is not working.

Sometime back, I fixed the short in the wire going to the overdrive button. It had worn through the wire coating. I fixed that and it was all working perfect until about a month ago.

any ideas?


I guess I will have to pull the cowel off the steering column and get a look at it again.

 

You might 1st check your fuses... On my 99 it is a 10a fuse.. check your owners manual..

 

IIRC , its the same fuse for the TPS...

 

and which fuse is it

 

I am assume you don't have a owner manual... Click on the following for a download for your year's owners manual...

GENUINE FORD AND LINCOLN MERCURY PARTS AND SERVICE – GLOVE BOX MANUALS REPLY PAGE – MANUALS NOT FOUND

 

because the last time it shorted out, the fuse for the overdrive button also was the same fuse for the gas pedal and guages... which are working fine as of now.

I'll just pull the cowel.

Yes i do have an owners manual.

 

Ok, that was interesting. I pulled the cowel and inspected the 3 wires for the OD Button. All 3 wires were cut clean in exactly the same place. I splices in some longer lengths of wire and rerouted them. I hope it works.

Really bad design from ford!!

The button now works.

 

Glad you got her fixed.. where exactly under the cover where the wire cut ? You didn't see any moving parts that could cause the wires to be rubbed ? Ya, it sounds like a bad design.

 

Same thing happened to me. So on the second fix I put a tuff piece of plastic in there to hopefully help keep it from happening again.

 

go to your local hardware store and get some netting to keep foren objets out. and while in there make sure there is no area that can have a rub factor to screw up a wire

 

I think chaffing and separated wires in the steering column is more prevalent in trucks with tilt wheels, especially if you always tilt it up before you get out and tilt it back down after you get in. Moving the wheel up and down that much is going to have some kind of effect on the wiring. JMHO