A month or more ago I had a weird cutting out problem where the car,
mostly after sitting cold, would run OK for half a mile or so and
then cut out, with the tach needle falling to zero, and then catching
almost immediately. Always happens on deceleration, or so it seems
(maybe because half a mile from my house, any direction, there's
something to decelerate for).

A few times it has not immediately caught after failing. I have
learned to immediately jiggle the key, but have no way of knowing if
this is causing the engine to catch or if it is some mumbo jumbo I
have developed that I think is working. This has happened four or
five times recently. Twice the car has died and taken several minutes
to restart. I'm wondering if it could be the mechanical part of the
switch getting sloppy. I notice that my annoying key-in-the-lock
chime happens intermittently, sometimes not at all.

Anybody had this happen, where the mechanical part of the lock won't
turn the electrical part far enough?

Jim