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First, set the parking brake and place the key to the "ON"
ignition position and shift the transmission down to first.
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Turn your key back to the "OFF" position since you will be
splicing the wires leading to the overdrive button. The key
wonít come out of the ignition, however. Take your trusty Phillips
head screwdriver and remove the two screws. Now slowly pull
up the shifter and you will notice that the shifter button and
a spring will come out of their housing. It is very important
that you hold on to the spring because one is not included in
the new shifter. However, the shifters do come with a new shifter
button, an overdrive button (this is "built-in" to the assembly),
and attached wires for connecting the shifter.
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You will notice that the wires in the old shifter are preventing
the shifter from going up any further. At this point you can
either take the easy route or the slightly more difficult route.
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The easy route consists of just cutting the two wires coming
out of the bottom of the old shifter and attaching them to the
wires out of the new shifter. If you do this, please cut the
wires as close to the old shifter as possible so you will have
some slack for stripping the existing wires.
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The slightly more difficult route requires removal of the plastic
piece around the transmission housing and hunting for the location
where the wires attach down below the transmission indicator.
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Using the easy route, strip the 2 wires out of the new shifter.
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Attach and solder the wires together and cover them with electrical
tape. If you have a wood trim kit, be especially careful when
soldering wires because you don't have a whole lot of room since
the wires only stick up a couple of inches. Some of that hot
solder could fall on the surrounding shifter trim piece or gear
indicator. Some terry cloth towels covering these pieces up
would be a very good idea.
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Now, turn your key back to the "ON" position and test your
overdrive button and make sure it works correctly. If it does
not work correctly, turn off the ignition, swap the wires, and
try again. Once the overdrive button works as expected, turn
the ignition key back to the "OFF" position.
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Now place the new button and old spring into the new shifter.
Looking directly into the hole that houses the shifter button,
the spring should line up in the notch in the back of the button
housing.
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The button is also keyed to go in only one way. Stuff any extra
slack in the wiring straight into the transmission housing while
you are placing the shifter back over the transmission rod.
Also, you need to hold the shifter button and spring until it
"clicks" into place as it is going down on top of the transmission
rod.
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Re-align the screw holes of the new shifter with those on the
transmission rod and insert the screws. Turn the ignition key
back on, shift the transmission into Park, and check the operation
of the overdrive button.
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Now your done! Test drive to see if everything is ok.