Tilt wheel ignition problems

[wsurf4me]

My sons 84 C10 wouldn't start yesterday. After a little troubleshooting we found that the starter is fine and it's the tilt column. If you push the tilt all the way down the starter turns over and it starts right up, any other tilt position and the starter does nothing. I've done some searching online without much success on this problem, anyone here seen this before? At this point I'm not sure how the ignition switch integrates with the tilt, is it mechanical or do I just have a loose electrical connection and tilting all the way down makes the connection? Any insight would be most welcome - thanks in advance.