My ignition cylinder and contacts were behaving strange. The key would stay in the start position and would not properly trigger the ignition until I went to manually turn the key back to on, but only slowly and sometimes with a jiggle. Cycling a few hundred times didn’t seem to help things. Decided to pull it and see if a clean would help. That leads me to this…







I got everything apart with only snapping a couple things, which glued back together just fine. Got the whole electrical plug cleaned up with acetone, green scotch brite and some dielectric grease on the mating surfaces. That cycles smoothly and should work much better now. Mazda keyed the contact rings, so just keep track of the springs and you’ll be fine.



My question, and the reason I stopped for the night, is the lock cylinder. I’ve pulled apart and rebuilt a bunch of the door and hatch cylinders, this one is just different enough to have me scratching my head.



It came apart relatively easily. Although I looked down at one point and noticed this little bent steel piece (red). It looks like a dust cover that the key pushes out of the way, but there’s no helper spring like the door cylinders. Looking at every angle on this cylinder and there’s no obvious slot/hole for it. I can’t get it to slide into the key slot either. Any ideas on where this belongs?




The spring shown is for the lever that provides drag on the steering column lock so it doesn’t immediately lock when the key is pulled.



Also, what’s the trick on getting the cylinder to come out of the housing? I tried working the other side and just broke one of those tabs, so that’s a no-go. Trying different key orientations with the cylinder lock up and down didn’t get things lined up either.



Thanks

 

Looking at it further, I have a theory. That piece of hardened steel is a security feature. It prevents direct access to the gates on the exterior of the cylinder. It should cover the opening where the lever slides in.


edit… well kind of. Tried putting it in this position, clicked the cover on and the small plate just fell out of position.

second try, had some 3/16” silicone foam leftover. Not sure if this is upside down or not. Two layers of the foam holds it in place. There’s a solid click going from off to acc now. Kind of feels like a Miata ignition, minus the push in.