Odd electrical fault

[grahambell]

Don't know if anyone out there has any ideas about this, but so far it's baffling me.

Got home in my old Fiesta runabout tonight, switched the engine off, took out the key, then noticed the ignition warning light was on.

Put key back in, turned it to accessory postion. Still on. Turned it to ignition postion, where it should be on, and it goes off. Turn to start, engine starts OK and light stays off.

Am wondering if it's maybe a bad earth somewhere as I recently had to route a new earth for the nearside indicators, headlight and wipers when they started playing up.

Any other suggestions gratefully received.

[chassis 33]

Could be an earthing fault, also check your brake/tail light i had an astra once where you could take the key out but with the lights on and the brake pedal down the engine would still run because the to filaments were shorting out, took me days of ripping the loom out of the car to find that one!

Regards
Iain

[numbnuts]

Usually means your altenater is on the way out.

[grahambell]

numbnuts said:

Usually means your altenater is on the way out.

Thanks for that. Not an alternator problem I've had before, but I did wonder as it now seems to be making a bit more noise in that area.

[theconrodkid]

its a diode in the rectifier pack gone pop

[grahambell]

It was indeed an alternator problem. Replaced it this morning and it's fine now. No more having to disconnect the battery every time I park the car!

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction guys.