My husband went to AutoZone for the part yesterday, but he said it looked completely different than the one showed on here in the earlier post. He is going to try to take the steering wheel cover off today to check this out further.

Any advise?

 

What year and model do you have?

 

It does sound like the same problem although I haven't heard anyone mention about the engine shutting down. It sounds like your case might be a more advanced state of the ignition switch getting much worse. I would change it and look at the bulk head connection point to see if there are any burned connections. I noticed on my switch 2 adjacent spots where the plastic plate that all of the spade connections protrude had some heat discoloration.

 

Same here. Burnt spots from arching. When I tried to jiggle the keys to get the radio back on, once in a while my engine would stop until I jiggled the keys just right. If you are working on a 2002 full size van I can tell you for sure the one pictured in an earlier post is not the right one.

 

Hey, 02, How's your paint holding up? Every Dodge van I've had after my '77 had peeling paint: My '85 and then my '86 had the same thing. I'm hoping they've solved the problem by now but I see my neighbor's '95 has about 20% missing already and he washes it more than anyone I've ever known. I keep telling him he's washing his paint right off.

Mine seems to be holding up ok so far.

 

Well we found the part and replaced it. It ran fine so that I could get my kids to school. Just hopped in to it to run some errands and as soon as I put the van in reverse, it died! We have a 2002 Dode 1500 Ram Van....

Please help! Any ideas?

 

Does the starter turn? Do you hear the fuel pump? Is the "Check Engine" lamp lit?

 

Mine looked totally different too. It looked like a rectangular shape with a round shape coming off at a 90 degree angle that fitted into the actual lock cylinder. At the end of the rectangular area the end had the electrical plug in connection. Read the posts on this.

 

Does the starter turn? YES
Do you hear the fuel pump? YES
Is the "Check Engine" lamp lit? NO

My husband called a friend that had a dodge ram truck. He said to replace the pick up plate and rotary button. Said that Dodge had a lot of problems with them going bad. Sympton is driving along and motor just stops running.

The ignition switch we replaced seems to help with the radio, turn signals and radio though....

 

Yes possible problem could be the crank position sensor (for the spark plugs) or cam position sensor (for the fuel injectors).

Does the van have spark? If not replace crank sensor and/or coil pack. If it has spark then replace the cam sensor which is in the bottom of the distributor.