Help needed for dimwit

[sjm]

My 356A has a loose wire behind the ignition barrel - apparently there are three wires to the back of the barrel, and one of them sends the power to the crank. This wire (I was advised by the breakdown man yesterday evening when I went to leave work and car wouldn't start!) is loose. He fiddled with it, and the car started fine. The same thing happened later on in the evening, so this obviously needs fixing properly.

I have never tried fixing anything on this or any other car, so not too sure what I may be getting in to here...

I'm assuming there is a simple way of taking the barrel out, and that I can them just cut off the frayed wire, pull through some clean wire, fix it in place and pop the barrel back. Any ideas? Am I being hopelessly optimistic? Or is this really a quick/ easy job?

Any help/ advice gratefully received!

[Rustbucket]

hard to say without seeing it, but if its just a loose wire at the back you can maybe get at it with a small screwdriver like one you would use to fix a plug etc.
the wire should only be held in by a grub screw , like you see on those milky terminal blocks for joining wires?
If you cant see it from behind, or you just dont bend that well anymore then you should be able to remove the iginition bareel setup by removing the knob ( unscrews and/or grubscrew fitting?) and then carefully unscrewing the chrome ring under that- which may need a bit of care to avoid scratching paint if its stuck !
The barrel should then drop out the back of the dash, so you can work on it.
Id remove the battery leads before doing this or you may glow in the dark a few times

[sjm]

Thanks Rustbucket! I'll give it a go over the weekend and let you know how it goes!