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Van starts without key, will not power down.

470 Views 17 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  bryancraftyhands, 
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Not sure if this is the right sub-forum, but here we go.

Went to turn the van off recently and my key was stuck in the ignition. After some jiggling I got it out without too much force, But the van stayed powered up as if it was still inserted.
I can turn the van on and run it as if they key was still there.

So I pulled the negative cable and went and got a replacement lock cylinder and…. same thing.
About this time I noticed my steering wheel wasn't locking aswell. I just had some work done that involved pulling the steering column.

What do ya’ll think? Bad ignition switch? Poorly adjusted shifter cable? something else?
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I had the key in the off position, then pulled it out. Leaving the battery indicator, odometer, shift indicator and door chime still active. I can turn the empty ignition to accessory, and start/run the car. This persisted with a new lock cylinder.

If I lock it and walk away the battery will drain itself.
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Yeah the new switch worked fine. Oddly enough when I put the new cylinder in, I could not get the key out at all. I had to pull the cylinder. After that even the old cylinder would hold on to the key consistantly.

The wheel not locking is whats throwing me though, could a incorrectly installed shifter cable cause that and the key issues? If its thinking its not in park…
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That makes sense, ignition switch will be in tomorrow hopefully that does it.

While taking the old switch off I noticed something else, I can shift out of park anytime without depressing the brakes.. hmm. The car still only starts in Park and Nuetral. Perhaps there IS something wrong with the cable or neutral switch?
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Ok I got under there and I believe the selector lever on the transmission was installed backwards (ball stud out) thats supposed to be facing in correct?

As for adjusting the cable.. I’m stumped, the dirrections in the techline and haines dont match what I’m seeing down there. There is no white locking tab or spring to adjust, and I can’t pull the cable at all in any direction. Am I missing parts? Or is this normal?
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The plot thickens!
I went to make sure my shift nob was still in park, and it was in park and locked. Now my lock cylinder is functioning normally and my wheel locked. This is with the cable unhooked, now how to get this bastard back on again…
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MechBob said:
Why is your shift cable unhooked? Why are you reciting directions to adjust a TV cable, which yours does not have(at least that is what it sounds like)? Why are you under there, all your problems point towards you broke something in your steering column/key/switch setup?
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Im not reading the directions for the TV cable, this is for the shift selector cable, that runs from the selector knob down to the arm on the Neutral safety switch.
The problems with the key cylinder dont seem to be able to affect the wheel lock and ability to shift without the brake(which is not normal for this van) Unless I’m mistaken… But seeing as taking the cable off and manually shifting the transmission via the controll lever just fixed all the symptoms maybe I’m not? I dont pretend to be any sort of expert here lol
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Little update incase someone has the same problem. My Shift lever(on the Nuetral safetey switch) was installed backwards lol. This cable travel distance off just enough that it was still shifting the transmission, but I assume it was fooling the NSS into thinking the car was still not in park, thus locking the key in. Flipped that thing with the stud facing in and I was good to go.

The issue with the brake too shift lock turned out to be unrelated.
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