Our 1996 Ford Taurus decided to stop working correctly. We turned the key to start the car and the interior lights came on. When the key was turned off, the power stayed on. I had to disconnect the battery.

That night I removed the ignition switch. The key didn’t seem to be moving the actuator. I then removed the ignition lock and manually moved the actuator from the top side. It looked like it was moving fine. Now it looks like the actuator rod was broken somewhere between the two.

I’ve since done some research and it looks like to repair this I have a couple choices:
A) Take car into Ford dealer and have them do it .. About $350 but no work for me.
B) Replace the car steering column in whole .. $50-100 and about 2 hours work.
C) Pull and disassemble column and replace actuator rod(s) .. $22 and about 12-20 hours work.

For budget reasons, I went with “C”. Amy picked up one of the actuator rods (the smaller one that normally breaks) for $12 from the Ford dealer. I have an exploded view of the column also supplied by the dealer. I’m going to start this on Saturday. I’ll keep adding to this article as I go through this adventure.

Saturday
My brother and I worked for several hours to get the steering column out of the car. Some of that time was spent getting tools (like a steering wheel puller .. $20 at Harbor Freight). It's not impossible but it's not easy. I do not recommend it to anyone who isn't mechanically enclined and not afraid of the occational injury.
Sunday
We took the steering column into the shed where we can work on it on a bench. From there we didn't have to take apart as much as we thought. The pin fell out of the smaller actuator arm. We took the column apart enough to split the tilt pivot into two pieces. We had to pry both tilt wheel locks on the bottom of the column away from the second half before we were able to pull the two halves apart. From there we decided to repair the old part (repress the pin) instead of trying to pry the plastic keeper from the bottom of the key lock cylinder on the column. Note: Just buy this plastic keeper from Ford ahead of time and you'll be able to use the new actuator arm. The old arm looked fine and the pin was a press fit. We also used apoxy when refitting the pin. Once set, we geased the assembly and put things back together. It went together alot faster and easier than I thought (being Sunday was a long frustrating day). We had it back together in about 4 to 5 hours.

I took some pictures. Look at this article's associations (at the bottom).

---

- Parts List -
F2DZ-3E723-A | Actuator | $12.00 from Ford Dealer
This is a long white, plastic rod with a pin at the end that goes from the ignition lock to the part below. The pin will fall out of this piece and therefore stops operating the ignition switch.

F0DZ-3E715-A | Actuator | $9.28 from Ford Dealer
This is another long white, plastic bar that actually moves the ignition switch under the dash.

Links:
Forum on actuator repair
Forum: "Car Won't Turn Off"
Forum: "Phantom key"
Photos of column installation