Slooow Progress

Okay, so I pulled the body off the '69 yesterday and sent it to my buddy for a long winters nap (and hopefully a total restoration). The underside of the body, the entire chassis, and more importantly the enitire T98, T-Case and assorted underpinnings have about 500 pounds (okay so I exagerate) of caked on, baked on grease and mud so cleaning it up is going to be a real piece of work. My son and I have started scraping it down so that we can take it to a drive thru car wash with some high end degreaser and pressure wash and scrub it thoroughly before we disassemble it any further (we learned our lesson on the '64). Any suggestions as to what degreaser might work best? A friend of mine told me to use oven cleaner, but I am very hesitant to do that. So far I have shoveled about 50 pounds of grime off the floor and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight.

While scraping the tranny, the plug that had been inserted into the back left corner of the T98 Top Cover was loose so I gently removed it. At first I just thought it was some sort of breather plug, but after cleaning it up a bit I looks like it's some sort of switch with two electrical connections at the rear of the plug, and a plunger mechanism on the end that is inserted into the T98. I assume that this is the switch that activates the back up lights when the tranny is put into reverse? Any ideas? I have attached some pics of the T98 and a close up of the plug / switch which should be easy to identify because it is actually the cleanest thing on the tranny. It doesn't seem to want to go back into the hole that it came out of with out being tapped with a dead blow hammer but I am reluctant to tap it in for fear of breaking the electrical contacts.

Thanks for any tips that you SME's can provide.

Ranger

 

Backup light switch. They are always on the opposite corner of the top cover from reverse. I presume the T-98 is away and up, like the T-18. Usually they thread in - I have never seen one like that.

 

The switch doesn't have any threads on it, it appears to be pressed in under normal circumstances. I suppose I should run a circuit check on it before I reseat it. Are these available on the aftermarket in case it doesn't work?