93 Legacy Shifter Problem

[KJEfting]

First post for me folks... Here's my problem. Hope you gurus can help.

My girlfriends 93 Legacy is being finicky about shifting out of park and into gear. Most of the time you have to play with the brake pedal and the shifter for a good five minutes before it'll go into gear. I'd call it the neutral safety switch on my GMC, but I'm not finding much on that part here on the Subaru forums. Any ideas? Thanks in advance fellas.

[KJEfting]

No one?

[96LegacyLAWD]

Check the linkage

[Huffer]

Check the linkage

It's an auto, so the linkage typically isn't going to be a huge deal as there's not a lot of play in them anyway.

My guess is that the release button is giving up the ghost a bit, with the car on, when you press the button to shift from P, do you hear a clicking sound? If you don't, or it's intermittent, that means the release switch isn't working correctly.

It may well be something related to the brake pedal switch as well - the car is not supposed to shift from P into any other gears without the brake pedal being applied.

You can bypass the safety release switch, it should be similar to the later models where you pry up the shifter trim and insert a flathead screwdriver into a slot by the shifter itself.