A while I ago when I shifted out of park, I heard a little snap and the little needle in the dash stopped working. Since I plan on replacing my entire dash with a custom gauge assembly and such anyway thus deleting my instrument cluster and the message center, I figured I'd find a solution to that problem along with all the others when I redid the dash.

So here is the question:

Is there anywhere in my transmission (or anywhere else) that I can tap into and get a signal of any kind based on what position my transmission is in, so that I can make an electronic display that is the equivalent of what that little thing used to do? Basically, I need something that can light a different LED based on if I am in Park, Neutral, Drive, 1, 2, etc. All I need is a logic signal, I can make a controller board to do what I need to do, but I need a signal to work with.

Any way to do this without rigging some sort of multi-position switch to the linkage and getting that to translate the movement of the linkage into into a signal?

 

Keith i am not a tranny expert by any means, but to teh best of my knowledge, the only signal generated by the tranny is for the OD switch...
the rest is mechanical.
It would be easiest to try reconnecting the position indicator to the steering column..
the gear indicator is not "driven" by the tranny linkage at all, but from a small plate that slides around the circumfrence of the steering column that is attached to teh shift lever. it connects via a small string that hooks onto the needle you see thru the dash.. pull the steering column cover( upper half only, not a major job) and you may find you simply popped the string off.. once you have the cover off the column, its easy to see how it works..IIRC teh column is held on by three phillips and one torx screw..

Hope this helps!

 

I suspected that would be the case. Bummer. Should be fun to try and make something to make this work right.

I don't want to fix the old one anyway, as I said, in DodgeDash 2.0, I am going to delete entitle instrument cluster and replace it with about a grand worth of Nordskog Gauges.