Starter keeps cranking

[Emma-Knight]

I had this with the Lucas Inertia Starter.
It just kept running with engine on.
As the Bendix is kicked out with running engine - no problem...
It will just spinn in „idle“
The cause was in the Lucas ignition
switch: a bad fitting key made the little locking blades in the lockingbarrel stick out of the barrel, cutting small Chips of alloy from the housing, with the little tail down angle of the housing, the chips went down to the contact pins - starter and switched plus contact beeing at the bottom. The grease in the switch with the chips finally made a nice, high resistent conductor, causing the solenoid to close contact...
and a little bit of white Lucas smoke
from the heated grease for free
Anna