dscam
Member
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2005
- Messages
- 17
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Ayrshire, Scotland
- Your Mercedes
- R230 SL350 (‘07)
Hi folks, wondered if you could help with this little one;
Recently started to suffer from my key being locked solid in the ignition barrel of my '91 W124 300D. Now, having previously read the many posts and advice on ignition barrels breaking up over time I assumed this was the problem and propmptly oredered up a new one from MB.
The problem manifested itself a little differently though in that the key turned totally freely in the barrel and was not at all sticky....simply that after a journey it would often be impossible to remove the key at all.....no amount of WD40, wiggling or jiggling would free it. The only thing that sometimes worked was to restart the car, go for a drive somewhere and then try to remove it on stopping again. Not very satisfactory and would only work sometimes. Worst case scenario which happened once or twice was parking in the city and not being able to remove the key but having to leave the vehicle (locked with remote and key hidden under appropriately draped cloth!).
Anyhow, brand new barrel and keys supplied and fitted at MB and thought this would solve problem. Alas, a mere 2 days later key stuck again.....resolved by previous method of starting up, driving a while then stopping and key came out.
So, the long and short of this I think is that I feel the problem may lie with the switch/solenoid in the autobox selector which 'tells' the ignition barrel the key can be released (i.e when the lever is in Park position P). If this was worn or bad connection etc I assume this would cause this problem.....???
I am going to wait til it happens again and fiddle with the lever a bit without actually driving anywhere and see if it then releases the key.
Does anyone have any thoughts?
If it is said switch/solenoid can this be replaced or repaired?
As always your help is greatly appreciated!
Duncan
Recently started to suffer from my key being locked solid in the ignition barrel of my '91 W124 300D. Now, having previously read the many posts and advice on ignition barrels breaking up over time I assumed this was the problem and propmptly oredered up a new one from MB.
The problem manifested itself a little differently though in that the key turned totally freely in the barrel and was not at all sticky....simply that after a journey it would often be impossible to remove the key at all.....no amount of WD40, wiggling or jiggling would free it. The only thing that sometimes worked was to restart the car, go for a drive somewhere and then try to remove it on stopping again. Not very satisfactory and would only work sometimes. Worst case scenario which happened once or twice was parking in the city and not being able to remove the key but having to leave the vehicle (locked with remote and key hidden under appropriately draped cloth!).
Anyhow, brand new barrel and keys supplied and fitted at MB and thought this would solve problem. Alas, a mere 2 days later key stuck again.....resolved by previous method of starting up, driving a while then stopping and key came out.
So, the long and short of this I think is that I feel the problem may lie with the switch/solenoid in the autobox selector which 'tells' the ignition barrel the key can be released (i.e when the lever is in Park position P). If this was worn or bad connection etc I assume this would cause this problem.....???
I am going to wait til it happens again and fiddle with the lever a bit without actually driving anywhere and see if it then releases the key.
Does anyone have any thoughts?
If it is said switch/solenoid can this be replaced or repaired?
As always your help is greatly appreciated!
Duncan
