Could someone tell me which direction of the key is officially off? Clearly, center is on and the car turns off when the key is turned to the right or left. I ***ume one of those directions is actually accessory and will leave a draw on the battery. My other cars, to the left is accessory, but I am unsure on this one. Thanks guys!
left is "off",centre is "on", right is "off" but switch can be moved to "on" without having the key in the ign.
Exactly. You may want to check the back side of your ignition switch to see what's hooked up where. If I remember correctly, there are three poles. They all get current in the "on" position, and they're all separate in the "off" position. If you want to be on the safe side, just make sure your accessories are hooked up to a separate pole than the power. Or you could hook battery and radio up to the same pole, but then you have to remember to shut off the radio before you get out of the car.
I'm pretty sure it's the same for 49-54. But I know for sure the 53-54 that straight up and down is "off", one click left from off is "lock", one click right from off is "on" (aka ACC) and a little turn right past on is start. I hope that makes sense!!
49-52 switch is different as it does not have a start position and the starter ****on is on the dash. Lock feature to the left is the same I beleive but not positive.
In my 48 it is backwards from my newer cars. Straight up and down (right or cclockwise) is running and turned clockwise is off. The ignition will turn without the key - or with any key - though, so I bought a replacement. Putting it in this weekend, the first one didn't fit right. For the mean time, since it is counter to what my other cars do, I have taken to unhooking the battery when it sits for more that a little bit, to protect against a dead battery. Easier to do that than to find a jump. 49-52 switch is different as it does not have a start position and the starter ****on is on the dash. Lock feature to the left is the same I beleive but not positive.[/QUOTE]
My '50 has the CCW = "LOCK", CENTER/STRAIGHT UP & DOWN = "ON" CW = "OFF BUT NOT LOCKED" (Can be turned to on). Starter ****on is on dash. In my Yooth, we would often walk around the neighborhood at night looking into parked cars to find one with the ignition set to CW = ...... !!. Powerband
Great! Thanks all, I appreciate the insight. I have the three position switch with the starter ****on on the dash. I will look behind and see how it is wired to make sure it is the way it's supposed to and not with anything wired to the battery pole creating a draw. I've only had the car a few weeks and the previous owner told me there was a draw someplace since the battery would go dead when sitting, so I've been doing the disconnect the battery thing just to be sure until I could check it all out. As an interesting side note, I did a ***le search on the car and was able to track every owner back to the original one. Talked to a guy who restored it back in the 80's and the car has seen virtually no miles since being restored, but each owner has for some reason fiddled with it to the point is now cobbled and half diss***embled. Seems goofy to have to do so much work on a restored car with pretty much no miles! LOL.
Oh! That's a different story. While you're looking at the back of the switch, hook your multimeter up to the terminals (set to ohmmeter) and make sure there's no electrical path when the switch is turned off. Your switch may be going bad. Not at all uncommon. One other thing you can do is hook the multimeter up between the...positive (I think) battery terminal and cable and set it to measure amperage. If you see current, start disconnecting things one at a time until it stops.
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