ignition switch gremlins ( long post? bear with me)
 

well, I decided to finally wire up my junkyard electric fan and try to chase down an air bag problem this past holiday weekend on my 91gt and ended up with an unexpected new problem.
The electric fan install went well and seems to work great so far, so I decided to fix my fog lights so they operate off of a 30 amp relay. That seems to work fine too. So, feeling pretty good at this point I went through my entire air bag system wiring, sensors, etc to see why I keep getting code 6 (high resistance/open). I found that the diagnostic monitor had a burn spot on the foil side of the circuit board, so I am awaiting a new one. Every other part of the system checks out. This problem would come and go and would clear itself when I shut the engine off and restarted it, until finally I get the code all of the time.
Now it gets weird! I put the dash together checked operation of new fog light circuit and electric fan again. However, I discovered #4 fuse for parking and instrument lights is blown. Today after about 40 fuses later and checking all of my new wiring for shorts, I find that every time I insert the key into the ignition and turn on parking lights #4 blows. So, I disassembled the column and kept checking the circuit each time I unpluged a connector until I reached the ground wire on the ignition cylinder. when I did that, the fuse stopped blowing and everything seems to work. I also found the connectors soaked with oil on the ignition switch when I unplugged it. 2 years ago I got a recall performedto replace the ignition switch because of potential fire hazzard. 2 months ago, the radio quit playing after going on and off, and finally just quit, but no blown fuse. This happened also when I started the car up.
I wonder if anyone else out there has had a similar problem with parking lights and ignition switch. I will remove the switch and lock cylinder this week and perhaps swap with a junkyard piece to see if that solves it. The oil and grounding out of the cylinder is what bothers me about the whole deal.:confused:

I just got back inside after a few hours of tracing wires and finally solved my major headache. The one thing the ignition and parking light circuits have in common is an annoying little part called the door chime. My chime hasn't worked right in years, and when i removed it, the fuses stopped blowing and everything works right. I opened the chime up and there is a bar inside that connects certain circuits together, which had slipped out of position and shorted the parking lights and ignition cylinder out. I'll replace that tommorrow and be happy to put up with the noise the chime makes. Now I can give my electric fan a good workout in some 90+ heat and humidity!