Frustration

Spend part of yesterday and most of today screwing around with the shift position indicator stuff.

I bought the GSS-2000 because I have a dual-range Hydramatic. Instead of the PRNDL/PRND12/PRNOD21 type pattern, my pattern is N, D-High, D-Low, L, R. I can not get the silly controller to completely be OK with that. If I program it as if each detente were the modern pattern, it works fine. So the position pot is detecting the correct locations. But the brain box gets flummoxed if I try to program it with Either N D 2 1 R or N O D 1 R. I can get it to recognize either N or P, and I can make that always N on the display. And I can get R to reliably be indicated, so I will be able to get the safety relay and the backup lights working, but the brain refuses to recognize 2. It treats both D ranges as D, no matter what I do, and sometimes wants to get Low as 1 and sometimes as a D also. sent a note to Dakota Digital to see if they had any suggestions. I bought this rig because it promised to be fully programmable regardless of the position of the pot sender. It seems to be only partially true.

I spent a lot of time screwing around with sensor position, arm length, etc., before I realized it's an electronic issue, not a mechanical one. I want to put the longer arm back on and the shorter linkage. Then, I want to try something I thought of since I came in and showered. Once I have the longer arm and thus, more room to sweep the sensor I want to try positioning the arm outside of the mechanical reach of my shifter to simulate Park. Then I will reconnect the linkage and program the rest of the positions. Maybe that will do the trick. The shifter will stop at Neutral, and never reach Park, but at least I won't be boggling it's brain by having N and P in the same position. That'll have to wait for next weekend, I'm afraid. I need to think about ordering tires this week.


What's left to do?

• Screw around some more with the shift position sender (working on this now).
• Program the shift position decoder.
• Permanantly attach and wire the shift position decoder, incl wiring to safety relay and backup lights.
• Put in shift position indicator. (Where?)
• Get new tires.
• Enjoy the car!