Bad Ignition switch? (1 Viewer)

[kstatecruiser]

Ok, last weekend I was driving around town and when I parked the cruiser (67 FJ40) for the night, I looked down at the fire wall and noticed smoke.  I immediately reached for the keys to shut the cruiser off and burnt the crap out of my fingers.  

After I had got things calmed down I did some investigating and found the wire coming from the fuse panel to the ignition switch had gotten hot and the keys were grounding through.  I am for sure this was a PO hack job, but I couldn't find any source of where the hot wire had shorted out and caused the insulation to melt off.  And it didn't blow any fuses    

So, is my ignition switch going bad (another PO hack job), or could there be another cause?

Thanks

 

[Gumby]

Not necessarliy the PO. Cruisers had dodgy ignition switches. Looks like yours is bad.

 

[Pin_Head]

Not necessarily the ignition switch.  If the switch was shorted to ground, then the wire going to the fuse block wouldn't be smoking because it is AFTER the switch in the circuit.  Make sure that the fuses are correct.  The main supply circuit up until the fuse block is potentially hazardous because the only thing protecting it is the fusible link and you may not have one on a '67.  Generally, this circuit is a large wire with either white or white with light blue stripe color code.  You need to check this circuit out all the way back to the battery and make sure it is not shorted or that the wires are burned.  

On early cruisers, the ignition wire (Black with yellow stripe) going to the coil is not fused either. Determine which color code the burned wire has because that will help.

 

[kstatecruiser]

The wire had no code, just a straight red wire (PO work) coming from the fuse block to the ignition switch, but I'll check under the hood too.

Thanks