No back up lights

[Doug Meloan]

My back up lights have recently quit working.  I thought perhaps the NSS was the issue so I took it off and inspected it and don't see any broken parts.  I jumpered the pink/black stripe wire to the light green wire to see if they would come on and still no back up lights. (yes, I turned key to on position) Bulbs are fine, fuse is fine.  Any thoughts where to check next?  Thanks, Doug

[Jason Edge]

Doug. The pink/black wire is your feed. When you turn the car on and headlights/park lights on you should have 12 volts at that connector.

Regardless, you can run 12 volts direct from battery or other source direct to green wire to check reverse lights from that point back.

[Jason Edge]

The metal plate comes apart form the bakellite body pretty easy by pulling the metal ears back.  Even before that you can check the slide channel to see if part of it has broken off. If it is it may still partially work but the Fork with 2 prongs will wobble back and forth until one of them side breaks off. If all plastic/bakellite is in good condition often it is just a matter of cleaning the metal slide piece inside and all the contacts. It sounds like you will have more issues once you inspect closely. I am out of the 1963 560 NSS but Russ or one of the others  may have a good one.

[Doug Meloan]

Just became either clearer or more complex. Decided to put the NSS back on, tested it before I tightened in down and the car would only start in Park and Neutral.  Went ahead and tightened it down, then it would only start in Park, but back up lights would work when selected put all the way down and stay on when put in Low (but if you wiggled lever they would go on and off). Took NSS back off and some tiny plastic peaces fell down and switch is real wobbly.  May have been before and just didn't notice.  As mentioned in an earlier post a couple of weeks ago I had noticed that shifter felt crunchy when putting into reverse, but did not know at that time if back up lights were working or not as it was always daytime so I could not notice.  I am thinking now that the switch was starting to crumble inside at that time.  Either way I know I need a new switch now so will try that and hopefully it will fix the back up light problem when installed.  Any thoughts from the experts would be appreciated.  Thanks, Doug