Ignition Switch Revisited

Man I'm tired of this. Seems most everyone is favorable of a hard start
relay and I can see why. Here's my prob again on my 74 SB. The starter
will not turn with the key. I've "jumped" all over this thing and the
only time it will crank is with a jumper between "30" and "50" on the
ignition switch harness AND and jumper between "C" and "50" on the seat
belt relay. I'm realizing that the ignition switch is probably bad but is
there something I'm missing about the seat belt relay? Can a faulty relay
cause a newly installed ignition switch to go out?

Thanks all!

RhinoJockey wrote:

> Man I'm tired of this. Seems most everyone is favorable of a hard start
> relay and I can see why. Here's my prob again on my 74 SB. The starter
> will not turn with the key. I've "jumped" all over this thing and the
> only time it will crank is with a jumper between "30" and "50" on the
> ignition switch harness AND and jumper between "C" and "50" on the seat
> belt relay. I'm realizing that the ignition switch is probably bad but is
> there something I'm missing about the seat belt relay? Can a faulty relay
> cause a newly installed ignition switch to go out?
>
> Thanks all!
>
>
>

I'd be tired too :-)

The seat belt relay can't make the switch go bad.
But I would still put a permanent jumper around the relay.
Who needs a car that won't start just at the moment when
the bad guys are about to 'jack you?

The real problem is that the tiny Ign switch is waaaaaay under-rated
for what it has to do.
The coil current is not all.
The whopper headlight current goes thru a set of contacts in there.
THEN you add the 30 Amps required just to get the starter solenoid
pulled in!
The result is HEAT...lots of it. And the contact points in the
switch are no bigger than a gnat's ass/.

Oh.....and the contract to make them went to the low bidder.
ROFL

That's why **some** of us are in favor of the booster/hard start
relay. Sure, if one had a shelf full of the OEM switches AND
didn't mind the nightmare to change them on a late car, keeping
it bone stock *might* make sense.

<don asbestos suit>

Speedy Jim
http://www.nls.net/mp/volks/

"Speedy Jim" > wrote in message
et...


> That's why **some** of us are in favor of the booster/hard start
> relay. Sure, if one had a shelf full of the OEM switches AND
> didn't mind the nightmare to change them on a late car, keeping
> it bone stock *might* make sense.
>
> <don asbestos suit>


heheheh....my 74 went to the crusher in about 02or 03 with the factory
ignition switch...still worked great as far as starting...it did develop a
bad connection at one point that caused the coil to lose power while
cranking...pressing the rubber connector on the bottom on tight cleared that
right up...not sure why...but anyway it never had a hard start relay in
it....if the factory switch only needs changing every 25-30 years i can't
see where that is unreasonable....i changed the ignition switch in my chevy
truck two times in the past 10 years or so....

Well, I'm sure willing to give it a try at this point. Still can't figure
out how the new ignition switch went bad though. I only tried to start
the car a few times with it. Maybe it was crap to begin with. You wanna
talk about the icing on the cake? Broke the Wiper AND Turn signal switch
replacing the initial ignition switch. What started out as replacing the
push-rod tubes in Dec '04 has really turned into something. Wish my wife
was still as excited about this project as me.

Another thought...Would the interlock relay switch have to be installed to
make the ignition switch operate properly? What I guess I mean is if I
had a jumper across "C" and "50" locations at the fuse box and assuming
the ignition switch is good, would it crank without the interlock relay
plugged in? I'm having a hard time believing my ignition switch failed,
again, after hardly any use.

"Tim Rogers" > wrote in message
...
> "Speedy Jim" > wrote in message
> et...


I just reach back to a 50 amp pushbutton switch on the kick panel
> under the rear seat and voila! That switch is connected directly to the
> battery and to the solenoid with 12 gauge wire. Simple and foolproof.
>
>

you should be using 10 guage wire...

RhinoJockey wrote:
> Another thought...Would the interlock relay switch have to be installed to
> make the ignition switch operate properly? What I guess I mean is if I
> had a jumper across "C" and "50" locations at the fuse box and assuming
> the ignition switch is good, would it crank without the interlock relay
> plugged in? I'm having a hard time believing my ignition switch failed,
> again, after hardly any use.
>


jumper across "C" and "50" is all you need. With that in place, you
can yank out the relay.

Speedy Jim
http://www.nls.net/mp/volks/

Thanks Speedy! Now I wonder if my original ignition switch was really bad
and instead was just the relay. That'd be my luck.

"Joey Tribiani" > wrote in message
news:RZk_f.530$8q.273@dukeread08...
>
> "Tim Rogers" > wrote in message
> ...
> >
> > I just reach back to a 50 amp pushbutton switch on the kick panel
> > under the rear seat and voila! That switch is connected directly to the
> > battery and to the solenoid with 12 gauge wire. Simple and foolproof.
> >
>
> you should be using 10 guage wire...
>
>

..............12 gauge is a lot heavier than the original wire from the
ignition switch. Actually, I'm just guessing about it being 12 gauge and it
might be 10 gauge anyway. It was just a scrap length of wire that I pulled
out of a shoe box from when I stripped a Vanagon that was junk several years
ago. My bug has the retractible shoulder belts from that vanagon as well.

.........The original ignition switch is still connected to the solenoid and
actually works more than half of the time. The damn thing seems to fail most
often at a gas station or a rest stop when the engine is hot. I used to try
to park in carefully selected locations where I could roll it downhill back
before I put in the pushbutton auxilliary switch.

timmy