neutral safety switch cleaning

Ah, the luck in life to have a husband who can fix a car (which is also why I can confidently drive a car with more than 220,000 miles on it all over the Eastern USA).

The problem began some months ago.  Every now and then when I turned the key to start the car, nothing would happen.  I would try again and on the 4th or 5th time, the car would start.  The last month or so this has been happening almost every time - maybe 2 out of 3 times - that I would start the car.  If I keep trying, I eventually get the car to start, but I'm starting to get paranoid about it.  What if it doesn't start?

It turns out that the problem is the Neutral Safety Switch.  There are two copper contacts that use spring pressure to push against the inside of the NSS to make and electrical contact. What happens is the grease gets old and starts to build up on the Springs and lock the copper contacts where they no longer make a connection.  You can read all about it HERE.

This afternoon John is in a friend's garage fixing my Neutral Safety Switch.  He has a Bose radio playing the Saturday afternoon opera and a mini computer so that he can look at the internet site referenced above for directions on how to do it.

See all that built up grease messing up the copper contacts?