Re: Armored Ignition Cable

Posted by Faust On 2009/3/9 0:00:30

Quote:

If the car has its original coil, the armored cable covers the power terminal to the coil. This makes connecting an alternate power source difficult. On old cars, with a separate "starter button" it worked independantly of the ignition switch, which only provided power to the coil. So, all that was necessary to start (steal) it was another power source to the coil ("hot wire"), then you just hit the starter. On most cars, you could also "hot wire" by jumping at the ignition switch. I believe the Packard "armor" prevents that also. For this reason, Ford provided a column lock as part of the ignition switch. You could start it by "hot wiring", but with a locked column, you couldn't drive it. I think Ford stopped that in '48.