Hi and thanks in advance. I pulled into my driveway today and went to put my 98 xk8 into park and started hearing the beeping noise like it does when you try to take it out of park. It went into park fine but I couldn't remove the key once it was shut off. Now it also won't shift out of park. I removed the shifter trim and was able to test the power at the shift solenoid and realize it had no power on either of the two wires. Im getting ready to test the brake switch but are the two problems related? Shouldn't I be able to still remove the key once it's in park? Thanks..

 

Sounds more like the Not-in-Park microswitch has failed. That would cause the beeping you heard and the shift solenoid only powers up when the system knows the lever is in Park. And if it thinks it's not in Park, the key won't be released either.

I'm not familiar with the early J Gate construction, but it's in there somewhere!

 

Thank you, I didn't know the not in park sensor was part of the shift solenoid but it makes sense. I will try and locate and test it out here in a bit. Do they usually need replaced or cleaned ? Is there a replacement for the not in park micro switch out there?

 

The "not in park" microswitch on my '97 car is here :



right hand side.

 

 

The little metal tab was broken in half on the front of the two microswitchs under the j gate cover. Problem solved thanks for the help

 

Just to confirm, you replaced the switch and the shift solenoid now functions? Asking because I have a similar situation. Broken tab, but it seems the switch works.

 

Yes everything is now working fine. The shift solenoid will not power up if it thinks it's not in park. I removed the j gate cover and to the right of the shifter there are two microswitches , one in front of another. The front switch had a metal tab that was broken in half so it wasn't making contact. I found the broken piece down inside shifter/console. I replaced the front microswitch and everything works fine now. Oddly enough the rear microswitch did not have a metal tab on it but everything seems to be working fine.

 

There should be a little metal lever / tab on both. This is the new one I bought for mine.

 

Anybody have any idea what the rear ones function is?