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Hiya Gary,

Concerning the neutral safety switch............

The sole purpose of the neutral safety switch is to prevent starting the engine while in gear.  Consequently, your posting that the switch is fine but that the car starts in gear has me scratching my head.  Perhaps I have misunderstood?  In any event, IF the switch is good AND you are able to start the engine while in gear THEN you must have a wiring snafu.

Know that the system for shifting gears in an AutoStick is electrical with a vacuum assist.  Given that, here's a big tip in doing any kind of diagnosis on the shifting system.  Problems that suddenly appear tend to be electrical in nature.  Those that come on slowly and get progressively worse tend to be related to the vacuum system.  So...............this begs the question, did this problem occur with a slow onset or did it simply appear one morning?

Hiya Gold,

To break in the rings on the engines I have built I followed this procedure............

I got the car up to 45 mph.  I made sure the tranny was in third gear.  At that point I took my foot off the gas and let the car coast down to 20 mph.  I then downshifted into second gear and pulled the car around and redid the run (up to third gear again).  I did that 16 times.  I then drove the car normally.  I've not had a bit of a problem going this route.

Of course, the above does assume that you've already done the cam and bearings break-in. But you are skipping the lower end, aren't you?

Hiya Cuse,

IIRC, the three other (besides the door buzzer) wires are a lead over to the passenger side, a lead up to the dome light, and a ground.  I'll check a wiring diagram and get back to you if I'm wrong (it's been known to happen!).

$12 (give or take some change) will very likely get you that four pronged switch.

Yes indeed, there is supposed to be four spade connectors on the driver side door switch.  I'm betting that your empty spade connector WAS the key alarm/door buzzer.

Sadly, only the all-too-obvious.  The four spade switches are no longer available new.

Good question.  I would think that one might be able to jerry-rig something in order to get the light working.  I haven't had to mess with that particular problem.  A few years ago I pulled a number of driver side switches from Bugs out on the boneyard.  Be glad to sell you one if any other alternatives pan out.

Hiya Eric,

I'm not a KG owner, but I'm pretty sure those switches are identical to those you'll find in a same-year Bug.

That being the case............look at the dash side of the switch.  Remove the switch knob.  Just behind the knob you should see an escutcheon surrounding the switch shaft.  This escutcheon has two slots located on its face on either side of the shaft.  VW employed a special tool to engage these two slots and turn the escutcheon counter-clockwise to remove.  I've found that a pair of needle nose held with a steady hand can do the same thing IF the escutcheon is not in there too tightly.  The switch body then removes from behind the dash.

Hiya All,

Burr has hit on a very important point (for me at least).

He makes the point that practice makes perfect (or darn close). 

For those yokels like me who do not have his wrenching hours I've found that going slow has big time advantages.  I limit my wrenching to about one hour at any given session.  I'll also stop if I'm switching to another task or procedure.  That gives me a chance to do two things.  I can reflect over what I've just done thinking about issues like "Was this task actually completed ? - Is there any more I have to do?" and "How could I have done this better?"  Then I start thinking about the upcoming task.  I take a look in my manuals (especially true for jobs that pop up infrequently like rear wheel bearings) and run through the procedures mentally.

Going slow, concentrating on what I'm doing, reflecting, and planning has saved me more grief than I can tell.