Hi there, My 97 automatic (straight line shift pattern) Legacy intermittently, and increasingly, will not shift out of park without pressing the bypass switch. I can hear a clicking in the steering column/under the dash when I try to press the button on the side of the shifter that normally allows shifting, the button won't go in and the shifter won't move out of park. When I use the bypass switch it shifts effortlessly.

 

I do depress the brake when trying to get it to come out of park, but the only sound I hear is associated with pressing the trigger button on the shifter, and it comes from either the steering column or behind the dash, not near the shifter or low near the brake pedal. There is no sound associated with pressing the brake pedal.

 

From I've read around on old threads, it sounds like the most likely cause is some solenoid... so I'm hoping to find the specific name of this solenoid (shift interlock solenoid? shift linkage solenoid? shift lock solenoid?) and ideally instructions on how to replace it.... 

 

I'd also love to get confirmation that these symptoms don't suggest a problem with something else like the neutral safety switch, brake switch, inhibitor switch, shifter cable....

 

Thanks a bazillion!

Start with the easy stuff and make sure the brake pedal is actually activating the switch.  Sometimes the little button wears out and the switch is not activated..

my 97 GT does this occasionally.

at one point i put a rubber band on the ''locking mechanism'' under the center console.

 

but mine is intermittent.

 

i think it happened when the clock spring failed, but i'm not sure.

someone suggested a bad ground????? maybe.

the switch on the brake pedal sounds like a good place to start.

 

i was just about to replace the solenoid, under the center console, when it started working again.

(you might vacuum out the trash in there.)

so it just live with the occasional head ache.

no real solution.

 

i have even considered drilling a hole in the shifter trim to make it easier to ''relaese''.

There is a box caled shift lock realy it likes to break the ground on the board inside and will not let it move is a small black box marked shft lock mouted to the string coulom up high try changing that or resloider the ground