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Jeff Niceswanger · 06-26-2014, 07:08 PM

If anybody remembers the Ford and Mercury Taurus/Sable line that was burning down peoples houses as they sit unattended in their garages...Maybe it was the LTD....Anyways,....I worked in the plant that made them.1973-1981 // Essex Wire ( United Technologies) . Zanesville Ohio...They moved the plant, to Mexico many years ago. There were 2 plants in town, one made wiring harnesses, the other electro-mechanical switches. Headlight, dimmer, ignition etc...about 3000 employees in all.
It was an Ignition switch problem also. Ford was trying to duplicate the small "Arc" that the Jap Cars had in their switches. You had to really bend your wrist around to go through the entire swing of our switch (to get it started)....Instead of coming up with a new switch, they just used smaller spacing between the contacts in the switch. But,,,it put the hot and the ground too close together, and as the switch wore, and flaking and soot got between them,a short would occur, and some resulted in fires......

We made the national news also, but back then it was at 6:30 at night, as 24 hour news had not been invented yet.....

06-26-2014, 07:08 PM	#5
Jeff Niceswanger Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 894 Likes: 686 Liked 1,034 Times in 368 Posts	Re: Just a thought.....? If anybody remembers the Ford and Mercury Taurus/Sable line that was burning down peoples houses as they sit unattended in their garages...Maybe it was the LTD....Anyways,....I worked in the plant that made them.1973-1981 // Essex Wire ( United Technologies) . Zanesville Ohio...They moved the plant, to Mexico many years ago. There were 2 plants in town, one made wiring harnesses, the other electro-mechanical switches. Headlight, dimmer, ignition etc...about 3000 employees in all. It was an Ignition switch problem also. Ford was trying to duplicate the small "Arc" that the Jap Cars had in their switches. You had to really bend your wrist around to go through the entire swing of our switch (to get it started)....Instead of coming up with a new switch, they just used smaller spacing between the contacts in the switch. But,,,it put the hot and the ground too close together, and as the switch wore, and flaking and soot got between them,a short would occur, and some resulted in fires...... We made the national news also, but back then it was at 6:30 at night, as 24 hour news had not been invented yet..... __________________ Jeff Niceswanger 3740 SS Last edited by Jeff Niceswanger; 06-26-2014 at 07:41 PM.