Clutch safety switch

[Jamesjh]

The drag strip near me requires a clutch safety switch or neutral safety switch in an automatic. Has anyone been somewhere that enforces that rule and had to install one to make them happy?


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[Bruce2]

Many years ago my local track started demanding it. I just told them such a thing never existed for a Beetle and they backed down from enforcing it.

[Marc]

I suppose if you ran a 3-bolt nose cone with the seatbelt warning light switch and the appropriate hockey stick you could rig up a starter relay that would provide a "neutral-switch" function with a manual trans that should satisfy them if they insist. Should be more reliable than using a microswitch on the clutch cable/linkage.
Don't remember if there was ever a 2-bolt nosecone with provision for that switch (some had a 4th gear switch, no help here)...if there was one it'd have to be from a `73 Type III I think, or maybe a Thing? - but a guy who can TIG weld could make one...

[Piledriver]

For the starter, like on newer cars?

I would try Marcs argument first, but making it happen shouldn't be terribly difficult.

If a manual, easiest is just put it on the clutch pedal ~like a GM brake light setup.

If you have an auto, ask if a brake interlock will do, and point out again the car never had any such thing new.

Just have the existing brake light circuit operate a relay inline with the starter circuit.
(The brake lights would need to be not running off the X-relay circuit or it won't have power to crank//no workee)

An auto should have a cable operated bellcrank shifter, so putting a switch there would provide what they asked for exactly and without too much pain..

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I agree with Pile's clutch pedal idea. I think cars now days require something like it to start now days; both sticks and automatics. On my Pinto I used a Ford four post solinoid (sp) and installed a switch on the shifter at the neutral position.

Lee

[Marc]

...If a manual, easiest is just put it on the clutch pedal ~like a GM brake light setup...

When I had my `69 converted to RHD I used the LHD master cylinder and there was no way to run hydraulic stoplight switches so I had to rig the brakelights like that. It works just fine with suspended pedals, but with Type I/III pedals it's necessary to add an extension upwards to have somewhere to connect the switch without it getting in the way of your feet.

I used a section of a narrow B/J torsion bar clamped to the underside of the pedal, so it could flex without permanently bending should the pedal ever travel too far down - on the clutch pedal, that would be virtually every time it was used.

I could've used a plunger-style switch (like a Detroit stoplight switch) but found it simpler to just mount a spring-return bat-handle toggle under the dash and connect it with a long spring, strong enough to cycle the switch but weak enough that it wouldn't tug too hard on the bat-handle and break it.

The setup worked fine but after about a year the Radio Shack switch failed. I had foreseen that and used a double-throw version. I got pulled over for no brakelamps and fixed it in 30 seconds by rotating the switch 180° and moving one wire => no citation

It wouldn't be too hard to rig a microswitch mounted to a bracket next to the clutch operating lever on the trans, the downside to that location is the poor accessibility and exposure to the elements.

Wherever the switch was located (nosecone, clutch pedal, clutch lever, etc.), I'd wire it so that the relay needs to be energized with ignition-switched power in order to inhibit the solenoid - that way it's "fail-functional" so that most failures would leave the starter with normal function. That means, of course, that it'd be on anytime the key was on and the pedal wasn't depressed so you'd want a "sneaker" switch in the path to the control side of the relay which would disable the whole deal, which'd give the option of only enabling it when at the track. About the only failure you wouldn't be able to override with the cutoff switch would be if one of the wires fell off the relay (or the contacts inside went bad)

[Jamesjh]

I went ahead and installed one. It's easy to unhook since it's just to make tech happy. The clutch safety switch is about the only thing they checked.
My first time with this car at a drag strip, 14.0 @ 101.5. Better than I expected and lots of room for improvement once I work a few bugs out.


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[sideshow]

Sometimes it is easier to just put in a radiator overflow tank rather than fight it

[Piledriver]

Sometimes it is easier to just put in a radiator overflow tank rather than fight it