i am utterly clueless here and any help would be nice. i have an 85 caprice and when i turn the key, forwards or back, nothing happens. i have power to headlights and dome lights. nothing off the key works. so i get a new ignition switch. plug the wires into the harness and pull the switch and the radio and wipers, etc come on. i was mounting it back on the column and it stopped working. back to how it was. what did i do? can something be shorting out the ignition? and blowing out the ignition switch? they are so simple, i dont see how the switch could have just stopped working.

how hard is it to turn the key?

There's a possibility that the rack inside the steering column might be broken. This is a die-cast zinc part and they do tend to fail. You will have to disassemble the steering column to replace it, if in fact that is the problem.

the key does turn as it usually does. and the bar to the switch moves fine.