need help...bad

alright i have a big problem, i took my battery off earlier today and when i went to go put it back in i forgot to tighten the negitive battery clamp all the way, so when i went to start it i head a pop and i noticed the neg terminal popped off. well i was like "alright no problem, i'll just put it back on" but the moment i touched the battery clamp to the terminal, the fan started to spin and a loud clicking noise was goin on, so i quickly took it away. i touched it agian just to see if it would do it agian, and it did. so agian i was like "alright, i must of left the key in" well i noticed i had taken the key out,so i put it in the ignition and when turned it i noticed something not good. after i click it past "lock" it will just slide back and forth with no resistance or clicking what so ever, even if i turn it all the way to start it will just slide till it won't go any further, agian with no resistance. well i can't start my car becuse of that and every time i connect the negitive battery clamp the fan will spin and that loud clicking noise will happen. i have no other way to get to work and school so any advice would be good. is my ignition swtich broken or something? how could of the neg clamp just popping off cause this?? AHHH SO PISSED RIGHT NOW LOL SOMEONE HELPPPPPPPP!!!

Umm that's odd, I don't see how your battery coming off could ever break the ignition switch. The ticking might be a relay, they tend to tick when they go bad or there's a short. But i've never seen or heard anything like this, are you leaving anything out? Why did you have your battery out? What work did you do on the car?

well i let my cousin borrow my optima batter becuse the intercooler piping on his supra is too big for a normal battery and he needed to borrow my smaller optima for a little while, well i got it back today and it all started when i went to go put it in. and yea, i'm suppose to be at work right now so this sucks lol. the clicking kinda sounds like the starter....in a way it kinda sounds like the ignition swtich is stuck on "start" does the fan spin when you start the car?

The fan doesn't normally spin when you start the car, unless you have the A/C switched on. Is it possible that someone tried to steal your car and broke your ignition switch? Try disconnecting the wire that goes from the battery to the starter and see if the clicking stops when the battery is connected. This is a rough one, it seems like something else had to have happened.

the car is garage kept, no chance of it being broken in becuse i drove it to my cousins house to pick the battery up then drove back home and went to install it, the AC is on by defualt when you rehook the battery and you swtich the key to "ON" so i really do think that my ignition swtich is like stuck on "ON" or "start" somehow and broken. what do you think. thanks for the replies

that is serious bro, an electrical short like that......could even affect other components. if I where you I'd get that sucker on a tow truck and take it to an auto electrician and get it checked right away.

Well if it were me i'd hotwire it and see if everything is normal. I have the wiring diagrams that tell you which wires do what. There's a connector after the ignition switch that you can disconnect and jumper certain wires to simulate each stage of the ignition switch. But I don't want to walk you through something like that if you don't know how, just incase you accidentally hit a ground and burn yourself. So if it sounds like it's stuck on start, does the engine turn over? and did you try disconnecting the starter? it's right at the front of the engine underneath really easy to disconnect.

i will disconnect the starter next but first i wanna take the ignition swtich out and let a technition look at it. does anyone have a guide on removeing it?

the ticking is the same thing that happens when your battery isn't producing enough power and you turn over the switch it will give a ticking noise. and the fan will turn on because once the batery is disconnected and then put back on the a/c seems to just come on automaticaly.
try something simple, this may not seem logical but put the battery back on and either get a jump or charge the battery. i just went through the stuff your explaining right now and it just meant my battery was dead.
one minute it was working and then the next minute it was ticking. swapped ou the battery and it started right up.

Yeah that would make sense for the ticking part of it, but it shouldn't be ticking as soon as the battery is connected. That would imply that it's trying to start without the key in it. But definitely try jumping it and see if it starts. I'll look into finding the instructions on removing the switch tonight, i'll let you know tomarrow.

thanks alot technical automan, i really apprciate it, but if i jump start it, i will have no way of shutting the car off lol. exept stalling it, but thats not good lol.

Yeah I was thinking about that after I wrote it lol...I can't find anything about how to remove the switch, but they usually arent complicated....the only problem I would see is the air bags are right there, and when a small spark can set them off you don't want to mess around too much with what you don't know. I don't know how to disable them, some cars you just take out the fuse or disconnect the SRS plugs, but I don't have a manual, and can't find it in the online manual (it isn't a complete manual). But if you want the wiring diagrams for the ignition system so you know which wires do what that come out of the ignition I can post that up. This is the weirdest problem i've seen on the forum so far.

do you have an alarm system or keyless entry system on your vehicle? I remember working on my parents' cars, and they're keyless entry/alarm system would malfunction, and then when i would reconnect the battery, i would hear the ticking as if the ignition was turning, but the motor wansn't. just my 2 cents.

no, no keyless entry, but i do have the cheap factory alarm. i went to the dealership and asked a technition and he sed that the mechanical part of the ignition swtich just might be broken, but that doesent explain why the popping off of the neg termnal would do this. i'm thinking before i fork over the 50 bucks they want for it, i might just get a $12 one from wallmart and see if it fixes the prob. are they pretty much universal? i think just removing the steering colum cover would allow acces to the key switch. this is a pretty odd problem now that i think about it lol. thanks for all the replies guys.

the ticking is the same thing that happens when your battery isn't producing enough power and you turn over the switch it will give a ticking noise. and the fan will turn on because once the batery is disconnected and then put back on the a/c seems to just come on automaticaly.
try something simple, this may not seem logical but put the battery back on and either get a jump or charge the battery. i just went through the stuff your explaining right now and it just meant my battery was dead.
one minute it was working and then the next minute it was ticking. swapped ou the battery and it started right up.

when you say you went through the same stuff, did you have the ignition swtich problem too?

That switch problem I think is just a huge coincidence. Did you try using the other battery? Switches aren't universal, they CAN be if you know how to wire it, but it probably wouldn't fit right in the steering column...but if your gonna do that, might as well skip the ignition switch and jumper some wires to see if that's even the problem.

YES! IF FIXED IT HA! lol, what i did was i took the colum cover off and watched the bottom as i turned the key back and forth and notcied that the electrical portion of the switch behind the mechanical part was moving in and out, so i held the rear of it inward and turned the key and BAM! i had resistance and clicking and spring loaded start thing lol. what i'm guessing is that when the neg clamp popped off it must of sparked the switch or something and melted the plastic clip thing that held it in cuz thats what it looked like, i'm gonna try to rig it up to stay or buy the part from mitsu. well glad i found the prob, Technical_Automan, i really appriciate your help, and everyone else who posted. thanks guuys