manual gear check

Hey Chad,

I just finished fitting a remote starter to my 5-speed at it seems to be safe enough. Here's what you need to do.

***DISCLAIMER*** Fitting a remote starter to Manual Transmission vehicles is NOT recommended.

OK, now no-one can sue me!  :-)

Purchase a microswitch with a big wide flat lever and mount it under the center of the shifter so that when the shifter is in neutral the switch is pressed. (I used a right-angled piece of metal and riveted it to the floorpan.)  The switch has 3 connections.... Common, NC (Normally closed) and NO (Normally open).  Attach the common connection to a good solid ground (like the floorpan you just riveted the switch to!  Take the NO connection and attach that to the alarm. (Check it requires a negative input.  Most do..if not, attach the common to a 12+ source instead).  That'll be enough to keep the alarm happy, but there is a chance that if something knocks the shifter into a gear wth the engine running it'll drive instead of just stalling.  If you want to get real fancy with it, take the NC from the switch and change the polarity to +12 (look in the relay section  here....it'll show you how to do that). Connect your new 12+ source to the brake light switch in the same location you connected the alarm's brake light wire.  Now if the car gets knocked into gear, the car will kill the engine guaranteed.

That being said, a little common sense goes a long way....Use The Parking Brake!!!

The magnetic switch works just as well.  Mount the switch to the floorpan (but high enough to just miss the shifter assembly when it's moving), and put the magnet on the bottom of the shifter. You;ll have to play with it a little to get the right distance for the magnet, but it'll work.  It doesn't have a NO/NC outputs, just a NO, so you can't do the brake light thingy.... but oh well.

Hope this helps,

Dave