no start, wiggle key , START!!!

[strikerty]

I have a 1993 that when my wife went to start the other day did nothing no clicky , no ticky no nothing so i assumed the solinoid was dead and replaced the whole starter and solinoid at a cost of 70 bucks. Got it all installed and was all proud of myself and went back to the drivers seat and turned the key . . nothing. Needless to say i was a little irritated as on the way back from town with the starter i blew the sidewall out of the rear tire on my 98 riviera at 60 mph. I wasnt having a good day. To make a long story short , a little while later i decided for kicks and giggles to give it one more go i tried to start it and it did nothing however i noticed a little bit of play in the switch and wiggled it vigorously and lo and behold it fired right up. turned it off and it wouldnt start again the start position did nothing. Wiggled the key and switch vigorously again and it started immediatly . Now from what i read online , there is a possibility that its just the rod that goes to the ignition switch or the switch itself .. .
Hopefully someone can give me some input on this before tomorrow. Also do i have to worry about the air bag going off if im working in the column itself and not taking off the wheel? or will removing the pos terminal on the batt prevent the air bag from going off. I dont repair cars for a living or anything but i can usually muddle thro most car problems cept major ones like engine replacement and the like . just thought before having another useless part replacement like the starter i would get some input . Thanks in advance.

[Smith1000]

Might try squirting some wd-40 in the key lock assembly to see if that loosens things up, but it sounds like the ignition key switch (electrical) could be going bad. I haven't replaced the igntion assembly on a Lesabre, but from what I have read, the steering wheel has to be lowered and possibly pulled to get to it. This is unlike the older cars where you could drop the steering wheel and acess the ignition assembly for replacement. The rod runs from the key lock assembly down to the ignition assembly. I thought I may need to do this on our 97 Lesabre, but it turns out is has a different problem. The books says to disconnect the battery and pull the airbag fuse before messing with the steering wheel. I found this article on the subject: http://shbox.com/ignsw/ign_switch_repl.html