[Bababooey]

Hey guys, need some help. I've got a 69 Firebird, that I thought had a bad ignition switch. It would start up and run fine, but wouldn't turn off, it's like the key hit a snag or something and would turn back the extra little bit to cut the car out. I bought a new one went to install it, and after I got down to the turning signal assembly under the steering wheel, I thought I'd give it a bump over just to see what happened and it started up and turned off just fine. So I re-installed the wheel, and tried it again it worked fine. I then started messing with the wiring under the hood, specifically the wires running to the distributor cap to try to get my tach to work again. I pulled one of the electrical wires off plugged it back on and tried to turn it over again to see it the tach would work and it hasn't started since. It won't even turn over. It has plenty of juice, and it will turn over by jumping the 2 studs on the solenoid on top of the starter, so that rules out the starter being engaged, and it turned over nice and fast, but won't turn by the key. What did I do??? Just by messing with the wires on the cap wouldn't affect the cars ability to turn over would it?? It is HEI, and being relatively new to older pontiacs I was wondering if it did matter?? Or did my iginition switch really take a dump this time?? The "gen" light comes on the dash in the on position, and the "temp" light comes on when I twist the key, but it won't even try to turn over. I did spray some WD-40 into the steering column when I had the wheel off to lube some of the moving mechanisms up a bit did that affect something??

Sorry it's such a long post I'm just at my wits end trying to figure this out. Some help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Brandon

[Bababooey]

Hey guys, need some help. I've got a 69 Firebird, that I thought had a bad ignition switch. It would start up and run fine, but wouldn't turn off, it's like the key hit a snag or something and would turn back the extra little bit to cut the car out. I bought a new one went to install it, and after I got down to the turning signal assembly under the steering wheel, I thought I'd give it a bump over just to see what happened and it started up and turned off just fine. So I re-installed the wheel, and tried it again it worked fine. I then started messing with the wiring under the hood, specifically the wires running to the distributor cap to try to get my tach to work again. I pulled one of the electrical wires off plugged it back on and tried to turn it over again to see it the tach would work and it hasn't started since. It won't even turn over. It has plenty of juice, and it will turn over by jumping the 2 studs on the solenoid on top of the starter, so that rules out the starter being engaged, and it turned over nice and fast, but won't turn by the key. What did I do??? Just by messing with the wires on the cap wouldn't affect the cars ability to turn over would it?? It is HEI, and being relatively new to older pontiacs I was wondering if it did matter?? Or did my iginition switch really take a dump this time?? The "gen" light comes on the dash in the on position, and the "temp" light comes on when I twist the key, but it won't even try to turn over. I did spray some WD-40 into the steering column when I had the wheel off to lube some of the moving mechanisms up a bit did that affect something??

Sorry it's such a long post I'm just at my wits end trying to figure this out. Some help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Brandon

[Bababooey]

Forgot to add, the neutral safety switch hasn't worked in this car since I've had it. Did I jar something loose possibly so it works all the time now??

[Txbobcat]

If the neutral safety switch wasnt working then some one evidently wired around it. Usually they do this by unplugging it and running a wire into the 2 ends. One of those may have come loose. Have fun

[Doug Christie]

It does sound like the neutral safety switch. To get to it just undo the two large bolts holding the steering column to the dash. If its like my '74, on the top of the column towards the firewall you will see a cresent shaped switch, two screws hold it on. Just change it and the problem will be solved.

[Bababooey]

Thanks for your help, I did get it figured out late last night. I didn't even mention that I was trying to figure out a way to mount the tach to the column. So I was moving stuff around, twisting stuff etc. I didn't figure it out till I dropped the column and started messing around I noticed the mid section moved. It has a floor shifter now, obviously it was a column shifter at one point. Anyhoo, if you twist the column piece tight counterclockwise she fires right up!!

Thanks for all the help, happy I got it figured out. It's always the simple things.

Brandon