I have a 2006 420d with 3000 hrs. It won't start. There seems to be no power sent to the starter as if it's a safety cutoff. It is intermittent. Sometimes it starts. Sometimes you play with the shifter and it starts after a couple try's. One time last month it didn't start after several tries. Called cat service and the came out and said it might be the tach. Ordered a new tach and no improvement. Still intermittent starting. I have 12v to the tach harness plug and I have 12v to the orange switch leg and 10.2v to the red leg. I don't know if that's normal. Fuses are all good. The service guy from cat said he looked at the shifter and didn't think it was the problem. I'm thinking I should be looking at that. Any help would be appreciated.
I know these new machines are weird in the electronic department, first time I ever heard of a machine not starting because of the tach. Yeah, sounds like the neutral switch maybe.
I Agree, had that happen once. It's more than the neutral start switch, if you hotwire it and get the engine running it will not go into gear and drive. If that happens change the shifter. Later Bob
Yup,,,, change the shifter.... they are notorious for that... classic symptom.
I had a similar problem with my 420D, it was not going into reverse - The replacement part number is #261-2207, $300. If that is the problem it's not hard to change out, maybe an hour IIRC. Read Bob's post - #2 in the thread I linked to.
My shifter went out with 3 or 4 hundred hours on it. It would all of a sudden shift into neutral. Finally figured out if you lifted up on the shifter handle that it would go into gear most of the time.
It was the shifter. I love this site.
Glad you got it fixed.:drinkup
Mnconstruction..... I bet you did the same as me.... "I bet I can fix this".... turned it over and its filled with epoxy! ....
I know I did.