I've told this story before but: I had the keep cranking after dying thing happen to me. The previous owner had installed a battery disconnect so one turn of that knob and I had time to think a few minutes. Reconnected, and it kept cranking. Disconnected, thought some more. Reconnected, restarted, and after it started Ijumped out and disconnected one of the small (outboard one I think) wires to the solenoid which kills the solenoid. I finished the trip and installed a switch under the hood in that circuit. I bought a used ignition lock at a junkyard and installed just the new used switch. Haven't had a recurrance. My conclusion: if your ignition switch is doing strange things like loosing everything but the engine until you carefully turn the switch back into position II to get back your radio, turn signal, wipers, etc., then don't delay, change the switch. I didn't have a fire but I guess I was lucky there was a disconnect.