trouble recognizing park

hackjob

Ok I have a 1990 rt4wd automatic, when I put my wagon into park it really does shift into park but on the cluster the light does not light up around the P unless I hold the shifter as far forward as it moves.(there is about an eighth of play forward from park) Now it also will not let me pull the key out until the park light has light up and also I noticed when the park light does turn on the idle drops and the car gets shakey, not when I put it into park just when the park light engages. Any help appreciated.

White&Nerdy

I think you're the only person on here with an RT4WD auto besides me. Mine's an 89 and doesn't have a shifter display on the dash, so I don't have the problem you're talking about. I have noticed that sometimes the illumination on the shifter itself (lights up the PRNDS2) doesn't work, and sometimes the S4 and LOW indicators on the dash don't work - but only sometimes. I've been in S4 and had the light turn on or off when going over a bump. I suspect there's a loose connection somewhere. The tranny operates perfectly, so I'm not worried about it in my case. In yours, it could be a loose electrical connection or maybe even an adjustment on the shifter itself to make that connection to tell the rest of the car "really, it's in P".

As for the shaky bit, that's probably a low idle that the car goes into once it fully realizes it's no longer in gear (it has to maintain a higher idle to not stall out.

Eagle Beagle

hi, what else have you done to get to the problem
except for asking ...

it helps ...