differentusername

My 99 vette is stuck in Richmond now probably because of the BCM. When I left yesterday morning it wouldn't crank, so I pissed with it opening and closing the doors and locks and pulling the key in and out and then it started up. Not the first time it's done that, but it had been a while and was never frequent. I figure it's the colder weather. The windows and locks and radio have intermittently been kicking off for a couple years, and the guages go haywire at the same time.
But now the fu pos has really screwed me.
It started in my buddy's driveway after I got down there yesterday and we went to a friend's house, then two hours later when we left it wouldn't start. We charged the battery and jumped it and it wouldn't start.
Came back today and got it to start twice after pissing with the BCM, pulling it out, looking at it. Put it back in and it would start, so I put the stuff back away under the kickboard in the Vette.
Then two hours later after we came back out of his house it wouldn't start again. Eventually none of the interior lights would come on including the light on the inside of the hood or the radio.
I think our BCM is different from the Camaro one from the picture on another post in here. It's in a metal box also, not plastic. None of the solder joints look damaged or cracked in any way.
Something up in the dash is whining whenever the ignition is turned to on that I can't identify. When I turn the key to start, the whine goes away but the starter doesn't even click. You can hear the fuel pressure prime and all the gauges come on, but the starter won't budge or click.

I plan to hotwire the car if possible, because I don't want to buy another one for $250 and have to fool with trying to get it to work with my key.

Experience? Help?

I looked at the schematics and see how to hotwire the SOB. Find the theft deterrent relay and put a jumper wire across it.

myk

iTrader: (4)

I'm thinking it's gotta be more than the BCM. Someone on this site was saying that the Vette's are notorious for having engine/pcm/bcm grounding issues. Could that be the case here? I'm just guessing-I hope someone with experience will chime in here...

Devils Mentor

iTrader: (20)

These damn BCM scare the HELL out of me! All the work we put into these cars and they can be taken out by this stupid and pointless thing! What happens 10 years from now when they are all gone, or ours are so old that they can't be rebuilt!?

BTW, I have a T/, not a Vette, but same concerns!


DM

myk

iTrader: (4)

Buddy and I were talking about that the other day. He thinks that cars like my '97Z, '99T/A will be SOL because the complicated electronics were obselete when they were NEW, let alone 10, 20, 30 years from now when these things will obviously need to be replaced. Also, you know that even if someone starts reproducing some of this stuff it'll be expensive, hard to come by and probably crap-just take a look at the "new" or 'remanned opti's that are typically garbage right out of the box. I guess we could all start stockpiling OEM parts.

Because of this I'm KEEPING my '69 Charger R/T, lol...

Devils Mentor

iTrader: (20)

Well I guess we can just hard wire everything as if it were a 3rd gen, lol... Just get Painless Wiring to build us a new fuse block or something

DM

gofastwclass

iTrader: (2)

Depending on who you speak to Opti's were junk from the factory... Think of how many "my car won't start" or "my car runs like crap" conversations you've heard and how often that was the fix.

Maybe your world differs from mine but that isn't the only reason I would keep that charger.

myk

iTrader: (4)

That's just one of MANY reasons-I consider myself very lucky to have it...

differentusername

Hey, let's concentrate on me! Just halfway kidding. The interior lights stopped working, the radio stopped turning on, the door locks would work, the windows wouldn't, the hatch wouldn't open.
There are three connectors going into it. Do you know if shorting it would be possible? I.e. the f sh-- will be on if the ignition is on. And it won't be if it isn't. I think I could f ing live with that if the POS didn't strand me, cost me hundreds of dollars and 30 hours of work to figure out and fix.
When the ignition was on I could hear a buzzing from up in the dash but I couldn't see what it was. It would stop buzzing when I had the key turned all the way to start then buzz again when I let it back to on. Maybe the ignition switch is the cause of the non start condition? But the dash and gauges would light up with the key in... If the ignition switch was shot, I guess the body control module would get no power and none of the things it controls would work?...But the door locks work.

Son of a bitch.