Ignition Switch Gremlins???

[Paul Reveres Ghia]

I have managed to get my Ghia up and running which is a big relief, all seems to run fine, starts on the button- Everything is Rosie you could say.....

....until I turn the ignition off- Nothing happens, the car keeps running! So i disconnect the battery, Nothing happens- the car keeps running! So I disconnect the positive into the coil from the ignition switch- and  it turns off.

This leads me to believe that the problem is inside the switch and that the switched live terminal is remainning live permanantly- This is also reflected in the tacho reading when the ignition is off and the engine not running.

Is this likely to be the problem??? Is the ignition switch repairable?

It is also worth mentioning that leaving it in this state overnight appears to before I realised the problem I left the battery connected overnight and it appears to have fried the coil!!

Any help would be appreciated.

I'm running a 1600 with an 009 and pertronix and dual 40 drla's

Seth

[Neil Davies]

Purely guesswork, but I would think that you should be able to take the switch apart on a lowlight. If it's the same as a beetle, and I see no reason why not, the front bit is all purely key, and they can be rebuilt with different tumblers so there should be no problem with splitting that off the electricky bit on the back. Whether the actual switch part itself can be rebuilt, I don't know, but I would have thought so. If not, just get another complete ignition assembly and swap the switch part over so you have a new switch and your original key.

[Paul Reveres Ghia]

Thanks, I will take it out and have a look- 

[mcmscott]

Do you have an alternator or a generator? The reason is with an alternator the field wire will "back feed" into the ign circut when shut down, to check if this is the problem start the car and then turn it off , if it still runs pull off the field wire, if it then dies this is your problem, the fix is a 20c diode wired into the field wire.