scca28
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- N.E.Philadelphia
Hi all, I posted this yesterday as a reply to an older thread, but I think it would be of more use as a new thread of it's own. Hope this helps someone:
Well, it finally got me. I had already purchased a new switch after my last post, thinking I would replace it at my leisure. My son went out to start the Jeep two nights ago, he came back in and said the key won't turn. So, last night, after the usual cursing and knuckle scraping, I got the old switch out and just put the new one in today. I had to tear the old switch apart to see what went wrong. Sure enough, one of the contacts was burnt. The spring for that contact must have just gotten weak, as it is bit shorter than the others. The other contacts all look good. The one that is burnt just so happens to be the contact for the radio, heater blower and other accesories.
Now the fun part; because of the heat generated by the faulty contact, it had melted itself into the body of the switch, which was the reason we couldn't turn the key. I was lucky it happened after I had turned off the ignition when I got home that night. If it had melted while I or my son was driving, we probably wouldn't have been able to shut it down. I have seen other posts where the key was stuck in the run position and wires had to be yanked off to stop the engine. If you have any sticking in your key, or flakey electrical problems, check this out before you get stuck somewhere.
Well, it finally got me. I had already purchased a new switch after my last post, thinking I would replace it at my leisure. My son went out to start the Jeep two nights ago, he came back in and said the key won't turn. So, last night, after the usual cursing and knuckle scraping, I got the old switch out and just put the new one in today. I had to tear the old switch apart to see what went wrong. Sure enough, one of the contacts was burnt. The spring for that contact must have just gotten weak, as it is bit shorter than the others. The other contacts all look good. The one that is burnt just so happens to be the contact for the radio, heater blower and other accesories.
Now the fun part; because of the heat generated by the faulty contact, it had melted itself into the body of the switch, which was the reason we couldn't turn the key. I was lucky it happened after I had turned off the ignition when I got home that night. If it had melted while I or my son was driving, we probably wouldn't have been able to shut it down. I have seen other posts where the key was stuck in the run position and wires had to be yanked off to stop the engine. If you have any sticking in your key, or flakey electrical problems, check this out before you get stuck somewhere.
