ignition switch?

[TexasT]

So, we went over to pick my daughter up from work last night. She wasn't quite
Ready so I turned the car off. When I went to restart all it did was spin over. I pop the hood, pressed the end of the rail, nothing came out but it did make a noise. Might have needed to get something tougher than my thumb nail, not conclusive. I pulled the relays on the pass fender. Shook em and reattached. It was humid, and I treied again but it just spun over again. Went to the back of the car and pulled the hot wire out of.the system. Still just spun. The new dw200 is so quiet I wasn't sure it was running or not. One of her coworkers gave em a ride over to the house to get our truck. I fooled around with it some more and it crunk up. Drove it home.reattache d the hot wire. It started so I went to bed.
It started this am and I headed to work. I did adjust the tilt and it stumbled. Starting to think might be an ignition switch or wiring in the column.

Your thoughts? TIA

[Charlief1]

Easiest way to check it is the next time it doesn't start. Turn the key to the on position and jump the starter. If it starts then the switch is bad, if not then it's something else.

[TurboCajun]

I ran into an issue that , within two days my car was hard to start, engine spinning more than normal, it happened about 4 times in one day but it would eventually start, then all of a sudden the key locked up and would not go into the start position,
replaced the key switch and all was good, never had problems again and will crank within a second.

[TexasT]

Any switch will do or do I need a specific brand?
I have noticed it takes longer to crank then start. It was "stiff" not wanting to return to the run position when I released the key. Only bad thing is the permanent collar on the column. I guess I need to break out the drill and find some roll pins to put it back on.

Will try the jump the starter next time it fails to bust off.

[Charlief1]

Didn't know about the stiff key Rich. Sounds like the rack on the opposite side of the key. It's plastic and can do the same thing. Most auto parts stores carry both the key and the rack. The rack is in the help section. The collar will need to come off and then the top sleeve on the column to change the rack.

[Steve Wood]

Could some one explain why we are trouble shooting an ignition switch problem when we started off discussing no fuel pressure?  If the lights are on in the dash when the key is turned to ON..then it has nothing to do with the switch


Maybe I misunderstood the first post?

[Forzfed]

Like Steve said, if it spins over your problem is either no fuel or no spark.  I would jumper the pump and try starting it.  If that doesn't work, check for spark.

[TexasT]

Ok, more info.
Crunk it up after work, made it about three blocks and it dies. Pushed it into the grocercy store parking lot, a nice guy helped and gave me a bottle of water. I thanked him. Opened hood and trunk. Pushed shrader valve on fuel rail, nothing. Another passer by stopped and offered help. He had a piece of wire so I jumped the black wire to the back of alternator. Now fuel rail squirted fuel when shrader valve was depressed. Started her up thanked the guy for helping, hopped in and drove home.
There are two relays on the pass fender, I believe one is fuel pump. Could this be the problem? On the hot wire there is a metal tab that I screwed to the car body. Is this a ground as it is loose. I will tighten and see if that helps.

More thoughts please. TIA
I guess we can change the title to cuts out and won't start intermittently .

[Steve Wood]

Do you have the factory oil warning light connected, or did you replace the sending unit with an oil pressure sender?

[TexasT]

It is tee'd factory sender on one leg and gauge on the other.
I didn't understand why when I jumped the pump , got pressure, took the jumper off and started the car. I thought it might have to do with heat but the car sat all day so I don't think that is it. The low oil sender, is that a nos4gn piece or can I pick one up local? Might try that next unless you have another idea.

[Steve Wood]

so, then I assume that the oil light comes on when you turn the key on and goes off when you crank the engine.

the sender has two poles in it.  One side controls the oil warning light in the dash...and the other side bypasses the fuel pressure relay on the passenger fender.  This serves as back up in case the relay goes bad.  Pressure rises to about 4 psi when you are cranking and turns on the fuel pump in case the relay has failed.

I was going to suggest that you pull the harness up, if it was not connected to the factory sender, and put a jumper between the pink/black wire and the gray wire.  This will make the fuel pump run when the key is turned on but it will not shut off after a couple of seconds as it normally does.  The pink/black wire comes directly from the fp/inj fuse so it should always be hot when the key is on

If the car does not die with this arrangement, it would point to the factory relay...BUT, since you have the factory sender in place, it should keep running anyway assuming nothing is wrong with the harness.

This is similar to applying voltage to the gray fuel pump test connector behind the alternator except it is switched thru the key  Again, I am assuming that your dash lights like the volt light and the SES lite are burning with the key on, engine off after it dies out on you.   If they are not working at that point, then we need to come back and look at the switch down on the column....

http://www.vortexbuicks-etc.com/fuel_pump.htm

[Steve Wood]

If you can get it to stop running, don't turn the key off. Go to the pump relay and see if the pink/black wire still has 12 volts on it. . If it does,  then we can eliminate the switch.

[TexasT]

Sounds good, didn't get to it last night. Kids all over, time we got home from gathering them up it was after 10.
I'll bust out the meter tonight and see where we have voltage and where we don't. With the extended cranking I'm leaning toward fuel pulp relay on the fender. But without testing we don't know. I wasn't paying attention to the dash lights. The volt light is jumped out with a Casper jump harness so that is out of play. I will look at the cel . Just funny to me I could put the jump from fuel pump direct to alternator get fuel to rail. Take jump off, start cat and drive home. I guess once it is running it has an easier time staying running except when it cuts out.

Thanks for the links and info.

[Steve Wood]

When you turn the key on (without starting the car), you should see the oil warning light and the cel light.  If the oil warning light is on, then it would appear the sender is working and I would think it should back up the fuel pressure relay so that the engine would not stop from lack of fuel when you have been driving....I guess it is possible that the part of the sender that completes the circuit to the fuel pump when it sees oil pressure could be bad??

That is the reason I suggested to jump the pink/black wire to the gray wire in the harness...this will eliminate the sender and send voltage full time that the key is on to the pump.  Therefore, if pink/black is hot after the engine dies, we can eliminate the ignition switch from the problem.

My first guess was the same as yours...bad fuel pump relay.  What is contrary to that diagnosis is that the oil pressure sender is in place...jumpin g pink black to gray eliminates it from the circuit.  If the engine then cranks and runs, we can assume that there is a problem with the sender that causes it to not back up the relay....if that is the case, replacing the relay and the sender to return it to the way the factory intended.

When you connected the gray test connector to the alternator, you eliminated ignition switch, relay, and oil pressure sender from the equation.  It then ran so it would seem to me that we can eliminate the pump and wiring to the pump from the problem.

this is one of those problems that should take about five minutes to figure out but it takes me five hours to talk about it- 

[TexasT]

Yeah but it is invaluable info when you are on the side of the road. Something is intermittent as after I jumped the pump to prime and disconnected the jumper the car started, ran, and I drove it to the house. I ordered the relay and am going to hit the things under the hood with a meter to see where we have power.
I think it is the relay as when I put the new to me injectors in and bumped the key it busted off. Now it takes a few revolutions to get it to run. And now we have the crank and no start. We will get to the bottom of it.