Warm ignition switch

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Doug.S

1964 Dart More Door
Joined
Jan 21, 2018
Messages
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Location
Saylorsburg, PA
I just got home and when I shut off my 64 Dart I noticed the ignition switch felt warm to the touch. The heat was not on in the car and the switch in the 64 is not part of the column. So it’s not engine heat. I got up under the dash and the wires that plug into the back of the switch are really warm-hot as well. The plastic connector that plugs to the back of the ignition switch was warm too.
I checked all the rest of the under dash wiring and it is fine (cool to the touch).
What could cause this kind of problem?
 
Loose terminals arcing. Its called fretting.
You may want to remove connectors,check them and see if you can tighten them up. And terminal grease to keep the air out of the connection.
 
Loose terminals arcing. Its called fretting.
You may want to remove connectors,check them and see if you can tighten them up. And terminal grease to keep the air out of the connection.
Thank you, I will pull the switch tomorrow and see what I find. I have a set of mini files, so I will clean up the connections and add die electric grease and go from there.
 
"What Tooljunkie said."
I had the same issue this evening. I'm restoring my 65 /6 Barracuda. Although It's stripped down, I have left the engine and drive train operational, as I move the car in and out of my carport to work on it. I noticed tonight (after moving the harness up out of the way of what I'm doing) that the grey wire (ignition 1) on the ignition switch connector has gotten "REAL" hot at one time (partially melted insulation) and the terminal was loose in the plug. That will absolutely cause a resistance problem, resulting in wires and connectors getting hot. I'm not having much luck getting the terminal out of the plug, some distortion is the problem. Once I get it out, I'll replace the terminal and the damaged wire.
Norm
 
I took a lot of the load off of my ignition switch by installing a relay. These old ignition switches tend to get tend contacts inside of them. This causes the dreaded flickering lights syndrome as well.
 
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