[mikepellegrini]

No, I haven't tried lubricating the switch. I may, but I don't think that's the problem. The switch turns easily, without hesitation. The detents for each position seem firm, with no slop.

I was playing with it, turning it on and off, and after maybe five minutes of this, everything went off when I turned it off. I repeated this several times and each time, everything went off - I was feeling good. I figured it had cured itself.

So I pulled the radio, intending to hook up the antenna amplifier. As I was working on the antenna wires, I heard the relay click and the power came on, by itself.

Just for the helluvit, I pulled on the antenna wires, jiggling them, and the power went off. This happened several times, and seemed to work each time.

Then I was standing at my workbench and heard the heater fan come on. This time, no amount of jiggling of the wires in the radio area would make the power go off.

None of this makes any sense, of course. Either the power going on or off was completely coincidental to the jiggling, or I must have some really nasty wiring problems...

Jiggling the wires directly at the back of the ignition switch produced no results.

I s'pose it's possible there's something broken in the switch (resting partially across the terminals) which could account for the intermittant problems. Although it seems odd that with me out of the car, the power would come on by itself.

I should probably take the switch apart and look at it.

I spent some time looking at the wiring diagrams, but haven't been able to figure out exactly how the "windows work when the key is removed till you open a door" is accomplished. I figure it has to be another relay, but am unsure which one. If that relay was broke, that could produce the same sort of effects I'm having - in theory.

Or, maybe the car is haunted?