My niece just moved in with my and has a 1998 Neon SOHC. The just had it in the shop where they told her that a bunch of work needed to be done. A couple of the things were stuff I am familiar with so I told her I would do those.

Today I changed the front brake pads and rotors and also changed the transmission fluid and replaced the filter. I tried to get the back drums off but they were really rusted on so I decided to save that project for another time.

I filled the transmission with 3 quarts of fluid and went to turn it over so I could check the level better and the car wont turn over.

The guages all light up and stero works fine but the car will not crank. I hooked up a battery charger (incase the batter was low) and got the same results. There is no noise from the engine so it seems almost electrical.

Anyhow, just wondering if there are any sensors I could have accidentally knocked off that would prevent the car from turning over. When I did take the transmission pan off there was a wire connected to is and it pulled a plug off the transmission. Not sure what this is but I put it back on so I would not think that it is. It is a three prong plug toward the front of the car.

Anyhow, any assistance would be appreciated.

 

3 prong plug on front of trans would be the park/neutral switch.....if you remove it then the car wont start because it doent know if the car is in park/neutral or any other gear.....without that plug, the car will not start.....if you plug it in and it still wont start, then try turning it around

 

Thanks Spudsterier,

That has to be it. I did try having it pluged in both ways last night but it did not work. The wires to this were tie wraped around the transmission pan and when I dropped this off to change the fluid the plug came undone.

My guess is that it pulled or bent the prongs when this happened and I am not getting a good connection. Do you know any way to bypass this for a quick test?

Again, I appreciate the help.

 

there are a few people in the 1st gen forum that know which wire to jump to get it to work(i cant remember)......you should put a post up in there and ask them since not to many people spend alot of time out here.....

did you check any of the wires to make sure there wasnt any broken ones???
did you check all fuses too????

 

That was it. A broken wire to the park/nuetral safety switch. Thanks for all you help.

 

hey atleast its fixed