This guide covers the removal and replacement of the ignition barrel and the full assembly behind the barrel that is attached to the wiring.

The easiest way to get to the ignition barrel wiring (especially on my car with all the extra under dash wiring) is to go through the fuel gauge hole, you can get to the barrel wiring from directly below it if you know how to remove it (shown later) but you've got to be careful around the headlight switch wiring, disturbing wiring on these old beasts can sometimes send you straight to hell...

The first step to removing the fuel gauge is removing the dash, the dash face plate on the HR is held by two screws at the top and the choke and wiper knob at the bottom. The screw shopwn is at the top right corner.

The second screw is at the top left corner of the dash face plate.

The choke knob holds the dash at the bottom left.

The wiper knob holds the dash at the bottom right. To remove the dash you only have to remove the two screws at the top and remove the wiper knob nut and then you can pull the choke cable out and twist the dash face over and out of your way.

The first step to removing the wiper knob and nut is removing the knob itself first, the knob is held by a very small screw underneath, you'll only need to loosen this off not remove it completely, and the knob should slide free.

Here I am showing the knob removed, as you can see the small locking screw is still in place.

The locking nuts on these knobs have two slices opposite each other on their edge. Using two crossed flat blade screw drivers put their ends into the groove and locking one against the other as shown use them to turn the nut anti-clockwise.

On the choke side it is unnecessary to remove the choke cable, simply pull it out as far as it will go and then loosen its nut off like the wiper knob nut.

Shown is the choke knob with its nut loosened, this will be enough to allow me to slide the dash over and out of the way of where I want to work.

This image shows the dash twisted over and out of the way of where I need to work.

Next we need to remove the fuel gauge, these gauges are only held by two small screws diagonally opposite each other.

There is no need to remove the wiring from the gauge, if you do however the back of the gauge is marked for which colour wire goes where. With the gauge removed I can now get my arm in behind the ignition barrel to pull the wires off more easily if I want to, I can also support it more easily while I actually remove the barrel from this angle.

On to actually removing the barrel.

The barrel has a small hole to the right of the key, to remove the barrel you need to turn the key all the way over to accessories and then put a small pin into the hole which when pushed will compress a small piston on a spring and allow you to pull the barrel free. Try the key at another position first so that when you turn it to accessories you'll have a feel for when you are actually pushing against the piston. With these old barrels there can sometimes be a little freeplay which will mean you'll miss the piston, keep trying and you'll find it.

Once the piston is depressed pull the barrel towards yourself to remove it, they can be stiff due to not being touched in many years so you can be lucky or badly unlucky in how easily it will be removed.

Here is the main difference between the HR and some earlier ignition barrels, the HR needs the barrel removed from the assembly before you can remove the nut that allows you to remove the assembly from the back. Some of the earlier models allowed you to remove the nut without removing the barrel and you could therefore drop it all out and do this job out of the car. The reason for the HR being like this is as a basic theft deterant, if you can remove the nut easily then you can replace the whole assembly easily with your own and Mr Thief just drove off in your classic, luckily your undamaged ignition assembly will likely be laying where you parked your car ;)

This image shows how the wiring is attached to the ignition assembly, two pegs on opposite edges need to be compressed inwards to allow the wiring to be pulled free, then you can replace the assembly if required (I needed to do so on this job).

Once you have replaced what needed to be replaced (in my case the barrel and complete assembly) you can reassemble it easily enough by following the steps in reverse. As you can see in the image my car is now running an earlier style ignition barrel.