I am new to this group so be gentle with my first time posting on usenet.

My mother recently passed away and left me her car in her will.It is a 1993
Dodge Colt with the mitsubishi 1.8L engine, front wheel drive, auto
transmission. She bought it new in 1993 and put about 30K miles on it.

It turns out she has been driving for years with the overdrive switch in
the off position. Overdrive appears not to work. I can drive the car
through all ranges of the gears, but the minute I press the overdrive
button to engage, it acts like I disconnected the transmission. I have
electrically tested the switch and wiring harness and they test good from
the switch to the plug that goes into the transmission. The switch
activates or de-activates the overdrive lamp on the dash.

I am a loss as what can cause the transmission to work with the overdrive
switch off, but acts like the transmission is disconnected (like pushing in
the clutch on a manual tranny) when the overdrive button is pushed.

Any suggestions? Anybody else experience this problem before?

Thanks

Dennis