jon r. pickens

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The ignition on my 1980 Caprice Classic would sometimes not turn when I
put the key in. One day I had to leave immediately and it decided to
act up. In my desperation, I grabbed the vice grips laying on the
passenger seat, clamped it onto the ignition (with key in place) and
turned hard.

It started. In fact, I never had that problem again.

On a side note, I'd like to mention that I never had to use the key
again either... ;-) The ignition worked fine with no key after that.
I didn't expect that. But I was 16 and that car was seriously fugly to
look at, and noone ever attempted to steal it. I don't know what the
exact problem was with the switch on that car, but before I did this,
you could turn the key just enough to unlock the steering wheel, remove
it, then start the car normally...weird.

~jp

whitelightning

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You didn't do anything to the switch which is not where the key is, but down
at the bottom of the steering column, you stripped the tumblers out of the
lock cylinder, which is why you never needed a key again

Whitelightning

william r. walsh

Hi!

Sounds like a measure of desperation. :-)


A while back I more or less inherited a 1984 GMC Sierra pickup truck. While
it runs well, the body is falling off. Anyway, over time the ignition
keylock got to be more and more worn out. Then one day I found the key would
just pull out. The locking mechanism itself still worked (if the switch was
in the "lock" position, you'd need it to turn the switch out of there) but
nothing else required the key to be in place.

Of course, after I discovered this, I drove the truck about 20 miles out of
town with no key in the switch! I came so close to just blindly shutting it
off before I realized that doing so wouldn't be such a great idea.

I still have the truck, and maybe one of these days I'll get around to
restoring it. Then I'll fix the keyswitch, as I have heard people like to
steal these trucks.

William

charles bendig

We had a 85 Suburban like that. As long as you didn't turn it to Lock,
you were fine. The cylinder was worn enough even with a new key made
from the VIN by the dealer, it would pull right out in Run. It got more
lose after 3 years. Got to the point that if you didn't turn the
steering wheel so the lock plate engaged, you didn't need the key to
turn the cylinder from lock!

Charles

dan

Thanks all for your input!!!

I'll try it on Monday and let you know.


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jon r. pickens

Yep... that's how the Caprice was. Before I busted it, it was as you
guys describe. Once the ignition was turned past the 'lock' position,
the key wasn't necessary. So the vice grips just "disabled" the lock
function.

One time, this chick I worked with thought it'd be funny to "steal"
that POS car. I never locked the doors, and rarely rolled up the
windows. She hopped in while she was on break and hid my car behind
the building. She then watched me freak out for about an hour while I
tried to figure out what to tell my Dad... I was 16 at the time. Well,
during all this, Dad comes in to say hello, and as calmly as possible,
I acted as if nothing was wrong. I was sweating bullets. The girl
apparently was freaking during this too, because she hadn't anticipated
him coming in, and she knew if I told him it had been "stolen" that
she'd have to cut in and tell the both of us exactly what in the hell
she was doing driving my car around. She'd parked it right in front of
the back door of the building, so that when I took out the trash, I'd
find the car.

~jp