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!

Reply to
RhinoJockey
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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.

Speedy Jim

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Reply to
Speedy Jim

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....

Reply to
Joey Tribiani

..........I too have sinned. The switches that are sold now aren't OEM quality. Changing out a steering column mounted switch in a VW is a distressing endeavor! .......When I was in my twenties, I could push start a bug on level ground by myself. Now that I'm a lot older and a little smarter, 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.

Reply to
Tim Rogers

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.

Reply to
RhinoJockey

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.

Reply to
RhinoJockey

I just reach back to a 50 amp pushbutton switch on the kick panel

you should be using 10 guage wire...

Reply to
Joey Tribiani

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

Speedy Jim

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Reply to
Speedy Jim

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

Reply to
RhinoJockey

.............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

Reply to
Tim Rogers

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