I removed the turn signal switch and was ready to paint column when these parts fell out. Can somebody tell me what these parts are for and how it goes back together? The best I can find in CSM is the key warning switch? The plastic holder appears to be broken. What if I leave these out?
Thanks, Rob

 

Yup, that was your key warning switch.
Fortunately, it's an annoying useless item that you're better off without.

Don't worry about it.

- Eric

 

Just for safety, check your CSM wiring diagram and see what color wire goes to the buzzer switch (think it's pink, but see what 69 CSM shows). Remove that wire from the harmonica connector at bottom of the column, on the column side, and tape the end. That way there can't be any power to the key switch in the column. If it were to ground against the column guts: 1) the buzzer would never shut up, 2) possibility of electrical fire.

 

Glenn brings up a good safety point, but in reality, there are no exposed contacts when this switch is removed. I "lost" mine on every car that I ever pulled the steering wheel off of.

 

Hee hee- you never met my 73 Delta convertible. The pink wire grounded in the column one night coming back from Greensboro and I had to listen to that damn buzzer (which had never worked with the key) squall for an hour till I could get home and figure it out. Being as it's wired into the doorjamb switch, it wouldn't shut up till I pulled the battery cable.

 

I'm sure to the countless number of people that buzzer kept from locking their keys in the car it wasn't an annoying or useless item.
The buzzers work on both my cars, they're supposed to work along with everything else that the car came with. Disconnect it at the horn relay and tuck the end underneath to hide it if you don't like the noise, or just take the key out before you open the door.
I don't know how it could just fall out when you pull the wheel off? You would need to take a couple of more parts off and turn the car upside down for it to do that?

For what it's worth, the judges checked to see if it worked on my Vista along with every other stinkin' electrical thing except for the wipers at the AACA show I did last Spring, they even watched the dash gauges when I started it to see if the idiot lights worked. If it would of been raining raining they would of probably wanted to see the wipers work too.

 

These darn buzzers are easy to disable - just listen for buzzer and follow the sound to the horn relay (center firewall on Olds, Left front fender on Chevy), then pull off the pink wire.

I've done it on every GM car of that era that I've had.

- Eric

edit: Bluevista, that's all well and good for a show car, but for a car that I drive every day, I ALWAYS disconnect that buzzer, even in modern cars, to keep me from going insane.

 

Thanks very much for the info. I am going to leave the switch out and pull the pink wire. I would have left it in and pulled the wire at the buzzer, but the plastic holder is broken in pieces. That buzzer used to work in my Cutlass and I found it very annoying. Thanks, Rob