Thread: Key stuck in ignition lock cylinder

This is not a very elegant fix, but it costs $1.50 max and works every time. It also avoids the potential safety problem of removing or disabling the solenoid. The parts you need are:

1/4" carriage bolt, 1-1/2" long
1/4" acorn nut
5/16" x 1-1/2" spring, .020 wire


Take the lower cover off of the steering column, put the bolt through the access hole for the solenoid, with the head of the bolt on the inside of the cover. Put the spring over the bolt, with the end of the spring seated in the well of the access hole. Tighten the acorn nut until the bolt bottoms in it. Reassemble it all, and now you can press up on the acorn nut to release the key.

Use a carriage bolt, not a standard one, because you want the un-threaded section under the head that the carriage style has. It slides smoothly through the access hole, where a fully-threaded one does not. Learned that on the first try.



Enjoy.

My neighbor, who has a 2000 3.8L 2-door Pontiac Grand Prix SE, emailed me this morning that she couldn't remove the key after placing the car in Park. She said it has happened a couple of times over the past 5 days and asked for my help.

I began searching the internet and came upon this forum. What an excellent bunch of information here! This evening, when she got home, try as I might, the key never got stuck. I told her I've read that many people have experienced this same problem and that I could install the manual override feature that SteelBiker described above since this is such an intermittent problem. She agreed. I just completed the modification and it works perfect.

Thanks to all (especially SteelBiker),
creakndale

Agreed.

Originally Posted by Madness

That is not a carriage bolt in the pic two posts up.

It was SteelBikers concept that was so ingenious.

I actually used a 2 inch 1/4"-20 bolt because the non threaded (smooth) section was 1-1/8" long. Using a hacksaw I cut the bolt's overall end-to-end length to 1-5/8" which left a threaded section of 3/8". Smoothed the cut with a file to remove all burrs.

I didn't have an acorn nut but I did have a nylok? nut (a 1/4-20 nut with a built-in plastic locking ring feature sometimes called an anti-vibration or aircraft nut).

I also didn't have the recommended spring but I did have one that was 5/16" diameter x 1" long made of 0.038" wire. It's a stiffer spring but was still easy enough to compress. Since the spring was a bit too short I added a washer to the outboard side where SteelBiker shows the acorn nut. It preloaded the spring just enough. Thinking about it now, I could have stretched that spring and left out the washer.

This is a fantastic workaround for the stuck key syndrome.
creakndale

Well that sucks since it was stolen while my wife had it warming up and the took the only key we had for it. It does run but the security light flashes for 10 minutes after start like it's going through the programming cycle. Guess we'll just deal with that and I'll yank that stupid solenoid out. Thanks.

1998 Grand Prix GTP. I had this problem happen a couple times recently. I used two zip ties to hold the button in on the bottom of the solenoid. Works perfect and didn't cost me anything to fix it.