Theory Of Operation

The C1 through C4 (T1, T3, T41, and T42) sense circuits communicate the shift lever position to the PCM. Each circuit is terminated at the transmission with a switch. Each switch can be either open or closed, depending on the shift lever position. The PCM can decode this information and determine the shift lever position. Each shift lever position has a certain combination of switches, which will be open and closed, this is called a PRNDL code. There are 4 switches, therefore: there are many possible combinations of open and closed switches (codes). However, there are only 9 valid codes (8 for AutoStick), one for each gear position and three recognized between gear codes. The remainder of the codes should never occur, these are called invalid codes. The following chart shows the normal switch states for each shift lever position.