Ignition switch starter switch lock cylinder issues

[holmesnmanny]

Clearly it's too much to ask for me catch a fucking break. Everything I do has to be the hardest most complicated thing every created by Toyota. So I'm having issues lately with starting. I did have a real problem with my battery it was leaking and was going bad so I replaced it and all was new. Then for some reason I can't start the car sometimes. I cleaned out the Neutral Safety switch and it seemed to fix it. Then the other day it started up again. I figured ok it's the lock cylinder since I can actually take my key out while the car is running and nothing happens and proceed to take apart my steering wheel assembly.

I take off the covers off and see that I need to remove the wheel to push a pin into the access hole while having the key in acc mode like the book and alldata says but for some reason it's not coming out. So I remove the screw holding the ignition switch from the back off the lock cylinder and I see what the problem is. First of all, the lock cylinder that I bought from autozone has the wrong size arm on the end that goes into the ignition switch. I look at rock auto and they all have the same piece of shit JUMBO size lock cylinder arm(mine is obviously less than half of the size that I bought and that rock auto shows) so clearly I am going to have to pay an arm and a leg at the dealer to buy one for my car since my car just happens to have a tiny itty bitty lock cylinder arm. Furthermore, it's obvious I'm going to have to buy a key unless my original manages to work unlike at autozone which comes with keys.

Now I see another problem. There is some kind of piece at the back end of the lock cylinder arm that is not going to allow it to be pulled out even when I do press the pin in. No matter how far I turn the key to "on" the piece is about an 1/8th of a turn short of being lined up with a cut out that will allow the lock cylinder to be pulled out from the front. That piece is attached to the lock cylinder head and I figure I'm going to have to break that piece off to get the assembly out however looking at the toyotapartszone website it's clear that I have to buy the whole assembly which obvious nothing I currently have tells me how exactly to install the assembly properly so I'm going to have to wing it.

http://www.toyotapartszone.com/Page_...reName=MEL160A

http://www.utoyot8.com/FullImage.asp...288807-++++%29

Here's something else, I am not 100 percent certain that it's the lock cylinder that is the problem. What I've been doing the last day or so is wiggling the black piece/assembly that you need to push in to get the key out(it has a couple springs on it and sits at the top of the lock cylinder) and that appears to make it want to start so I clearly need to buy that assembly as well. However, I'm not sure which part it is. I'm hoping it's the 84532 solenoid assembly that is showed.

Anyone have any ideas on this.

[holmesnmanny]

Ok, well I finally gave it another try to pull it out and I see what's going on. The lock cylinder arm actually goes into another piece which in turn goes into the ignition switch. I realized this after trying to yank it out hard and saw that it did come out. However, I was unable to get the thing to start after putting the new one in and after fiddling with it for a while I finally got smart and tapped the brake pedal and that allowed me to start it. This may be related to me moving the shift lever around after hitting the override as I tried starting it in neutral earlier.

However, I still have issues. First of all, I can't get the beeping switch to completely shut off when the door is open after removing the key in the off position. It appears that my lock cylinder has a metal piece a lil bit higher than my oem in the spot that the white/opaque beeping light switch goes in when you insert the lock cylinder so it keeps thinking that the key is in the ignition. I think I'm going to take this one back tomorrow to another store that has one and exchange it for another one since the one I bought was actually open box.

Secondly, I can't start the car in neutral. I'm wondering if my troubles are lying in the neutral safety switch afterall. I think I'm going to need to start testing things using a digital meter 'though I've never learned how to do that.

There is still something wrong with something in the ignition area, especially since I can't get the thing to start in neutral.

[Doctor J]

Well I probably misunderstood your question and made this reply:

The following test may help you but it may not be very accurate in intermittent conditions, so you may repeat each step more then once
First you need to check battery connections and condition of the negative battery cable, (where it connected to the body and transmission housing)
Obtain

• “Remote starter switch’ ( 7 or more amps normally open pushbutton with two 3 feet 14 to 18 ga wires with insulated alligator clips
• Test light with 3.4 Watt 12 V bulb
• 20 feet of 18 ga wire with alligator clips
• Some electrical tape

If the starter makes no clicking or it makes a weak click after holding key in the starter position proceed to the following:

• • Disconnect the wire from cold start injector to prevent flooding
  • Disconnect the small wire from the starter solenoid and hook up the remote switch; connect other end to the battery + terminal
  • Push the button
  • If starter does not work hook up a test light to the short heave wire between the solenoid and starter motor (on the firewall side make sure that this connection is well insulated)
  • Push the button and observe the light if light is bright, the brushes starter are worn
  • If no light replace solenoid
  • If starter operates, connect 20 feet of wire in series with the remote starter switch (to imitate real circuit resistance)
  • If starter does not operate now install relay as outlined in DIY section

If starter operates in all cases remove testing equipment from starter and test the control circuit

• • Hook up a test light from between the small wire removed in step 1 and the ground
  • Turn the key to start and observe the light
  • If it is bright and does not flicker, wiggle the gear selector lever
  • If light is still bright hook up the 12V drill motor (De Walt 12 V cordless ) to the wire disconnected in step 1; ground other drill connector (this will imitate starter solenoid load)
  • If drill works the problem is intermittent and require more testing , however you may install relay per step 8
  • If light flickers, bypass the neutral safety switch; recheck the light
  • If light does not flicker, replace neutral safety switch and see steps 12,13

If light still flickers:

• • Unplug the ignition switch
  • Connect remote starter between the solid white and black/white wires
  • Push the button hold it for 3-5 seconds, and observe the light
  • If light is steady replace ignition switch (not the lock cylinder!) and refer to steps 12 and 13, (note you may also install pushbutton switch by attaching it between white and blk/wht wires
  • If light flickers there is a bad connection on the wire from the ign switch to the neutral safety switch; you may run auxiliary wire by splitting it from the blk/white wire and connecting it to the starter terminal (see step 2)
  • Reconnect the cold start injector and remove testing equipment

To stop the beeping, disconncte small conncetor next to the main ignition switch conncector
The shoft interlock system will not let you to shift the gears whrn ignition off and brake pedal released, but it does not affect the starter operation
Not starting is neutral means the neutral safety switch is out of adjustment

[holmesnmanny]

Thanks for the reply.

Update:

The problem got really bad the other day after I had just started the car and parked at the nearby Walmart. It wouldn't start and the car wasn't even close to hot yet. That's why I assumed it was the worn out lock cylinder. It's clear after working on this for a few days and seeing how the lock cylinder works that it's not the lock cylinder. So anyways, I got up today and proceeded to start on the neutral safety switch again. I moved it around and got it to start in both neutral and park. Made sure I carefully tightened it down without moving it and went on my way. I had no problems today while working( I pizza delivery part time while in college) until late tonight when it did it again. Then it started.

So, let's back up a bit. Like I said in my earlier post I actually had problems with my battery before and when I did the first thing I thought was that my original oem starter was going bad. So I have this car with 133k miles in great shape at the junk yard I've been picking apart and I proceeded to pull a clearly newly remanufactured starter(it looks brand new and says 'toyota remanufactured' on it) and put it on my car. It actually worked fine but one thing did stick out at me, the new starter appeared to crank slower than my oem one. I thought that was odd but then the battery went kaput so I replaced that and everything was fine until the recent symptoms. So now that I've pretty much ascertained that it can only be the reman starter I put in there, tomorrow I'm pulling it and putting my old one back in. Then I will see if it does it again. I'm guessing it won't. When my battery was going bad before and I would try to crank it the lights would all die, this time only the clock light dims when I start and it doesn't crank.

Oh, also, what I did for the beeping switch is I loosened the two screws holding it then proceeded to cut a paper clip into a u formation and put it in between the switch and the bracket casing. Then I lightly tightened it back down and tested it. What I did was I put enough distance in between the switch button and the cylinder that it works correctly.

If it is the starter problem you suggested lie with reman starters and their small gauge wires then this should fix it.

However, my question is, if the problem is with the gauge wiring in the reman starters would it be possible to rewire them ourselves ?

[holmesnmanny]

Ok so I put the old one back in and ran it. The thing did the no start thing again. So I went down to picknpull and pulled a neutral safety switch from a car with twice as many miles as mine. Put it in and drove it today and no matter how many times I tried starting it in park or neutral is started every time so this should be it. It was the neutral safety switch going bad.

The thing about it is I was comparing my old one and the recent one and there seems to be a lil bit of play in the middle part that turns so maybe it's moving while in the car and not allowing the contacts to touch ? Not too sure, but I will run this and if it does its thing again I will update, but it appears that mine was going bad afterall.