In my troubles of trying to figure out what's wrong with my 1996 Landcruiser, I've taken the neutral safety switch wiring harness off and inspected it on several occasions. This last time, I decided to give back a bit by taking some pics as I did it. It was fairly frustrating for me to figure out how to get it off, get the plastic tab out, and get the individual wires out of the harness, so here's some pics to possibly make it easier for someone else.
1. Climb under your car from the driver's side and scoot across to where your head is almost sticking out the passenger side. The Neutral Safety Switch is on the passenger side of the vehicle on the side of the transmission. The driveshaft is kind of in the way, but you do not need to remove it to just get at the neutral safety switch harness.
2. I use two flathead screwdrivers to remove the harness from the NSS. Use one to press in the tab, and the other to pry (gently) up the neutral safety switch. Be careful and go slow with this. Pry from each side a bit at a time.
3. Here's a pic of it almost off...from here I can just pull the harness off, and work it over the transmission to the other side....you can access it much easier from that side. As you're doing that, you might wrap it around some of the other wires up there, if you feed it right, the harness drops down pretty far where it's easy to work on.
4. Now that you have the wiring harness off the NSS and easily accessible to you on the driver's side of the transmission, it'll probably be pretty messy. Wipe off the grease as much as you can and you'll start to see the white plastic insert that helps hold it all together. The parts of the harness that are stationary are gray, the plastic insert is white, you should be able to see pretty easily which is which. Here's a pic with the plastic insert pointed out:
5. Next you need to get that plastic insert out, this is a little tricky, but it does eventually pull all the way out. You'll probably need a really small flathead screwdriver for this, and some needlenose pliers. I was able to slowly pry it out with the screwdriver far enough to get the pliers on it and then pull it all the way out. Go slow, and pry in different places, while being gentle enough not to break the gray plastic pieces of the connector. Here's a pic of it halfway out. From here I just grabbed it with the pliers and pulled it gently out, the whole thing is one piece:
6. Now that the plastic insert is out, I would try and clean the grease out as much as possible, it'll help you see where you need to pry the tabs out of the way to pull the wires out.
7. Now, one of the most frustrating parts for me, which is why I took the pics. The two main wires that you need to worry about are the Black/White wire (which comes from the ignition) and the Black/Red wire (which goes to the starter). These wires have connectors at the end that go into the harness. Here's a stolen picture from adalnay's post of what those connectors look like:
Those connector ends are held in place in the gray wiring harness by the little tabs in this picture below:
As you can see on the left one in the pic, I stick a small screwdriver to push the tab down away from the wire connector...that's what frees the the wire connector in the harness, and you're able to pull the wire out. I like to grab the wire with a pair of needlenose pliers and pull it out as I have the tab depressed.
Do that to both wires to get them out of the wiring harness. From here just inspect them and determine what you want to do. Mine were both in pretty condition so I've ruled out the NSS wiring harness as my issue.
1. Climb under your car from the driver's side and scoot across to where your head is almost sticking out the passenger side. The Neutral Safety Switch is on the passenger side of the vehicle on the side of the transmission. The driveshaft is kind of in the way, but you do not need to remove it to just get at the neutral safety switch harness.
2. I use two flathead screwdrivers to remove the harness from the NSS. Use one to press in the tab, and the other to pry (gently) up the neutral safety switch. Be careful and go slow with this. Pry from each side a bit at a time.
3. Here's a pic of it almost off...from here I can just pull the harness off, and work it over the transmission to the other side....you can access it much easier from that side. As you're doing that, you might wrap it around some of the other wires up there, if you feed it right, the harness drops down pretty far where it's easy to work on.
4. Now that you have the wiring harness off the NSS and easily accessible to you on the driver's side of the transmission, it'll probably be pretty messy. Wipe off the grease as much as you can and you'll start to see the white plastic insert that helps hold it all together. The parts of the harness that are stationary are gray, the plastic insert is white, you should be able to see pretty easily which is which. Here's a pic with the plastic insert pointed out:
5. Next you need to get that plastic insert out, this is a little tricky, but it does eventually pull all the way out. You'll probably need a really small flathead screwdriver for this, and some needlenose pliers. I was able to slowly pry it out with the screwdriver far enough to get the pliers on it and then pull it all the way out. Go slow, and pry in different places, while being gentle enough not to break the gray plastic pieces of the connector. Here's a pic of it halfway out. From here I just grabbed it with the pliers and pulled it gently out, the whole thing is one piece:
6. Now that the plastic insert is out, I would try and clean the grease out as much as possible, it'll help you see where you need to pry the tabs out of the way to pull the wires out.
7. Now, one of the most frustrating parts for me, which is why I took the pics. The two main wires that you need to worry about are the Black/White wire (which comes from the ignition) and the Black/Red wire (which goes to the starter). These wires have connectors at the end that go into the harness. Here's a stolen picture from adalnay's post of what those connectors look like:
Those connector ends are held in place in the gray wiring harness by the little tabs in this picture below:
As you can see on the left one in the pic, I stick a small screwdriver to push the tab down away from the wire connector...that's what frees the the wire connector in the harness, and you're able to pull the wire out. I like to grab the wire with a pair of needlenose pliers and pull it out as I have the tab depressed.
Do that to both wires to get them out of the wiring harness. From here just inspect them and determine what you want to do. Mine were both in pretty condition so I've ruled out the NSS wiring harness as my issue.
