So ive been reading on here for a day or two trying to find my issue. I have a 1996 trans am ws6 M6 car. Some are similar but not the exact same. The other night on November 1st I went with my wife and her friend to a haunted house thing. It was a 5 hour round trip there and back and everything did fine. When we picked her friend up I shut the car off and everything was fine. I get back in and start it like normal and all of a sudden my gauge lights go out. The check engine and warning lights work fine but my dash lights are out. So I make the 2 and a half hour trip there with no dash lights and back. The next day I go try and figure it out and I cant. So yesterday. I took the under dash apart and started looking for wires that may have melted or gotten loose or cut. Found nothing. Looked and tested all fuses and found the tail light 20A fuse blew. Put a new one in and changed all the rest for good measure. Now somehow my lights still dont work I found a loose sire in the center console light and when I fixed that the lights came on. So I was happy to fix the issue. My driver side headlight was getting dim so I went and got 2 and installed those. Sent to start the car and nothing. Like nothing happens at all the dash lights come on and the security light comes on and goes off like its supposed to. But theres no clicking from the battery theres no turning over theres just nothing. Almost like im not pressing the clutch down to start the car. I did find the clutch switch had been taped over and not working but ive had the car for 3 years now and no issues but I guess I found the reason I can start the car without pressing the clutch. But theres no power to the plug in at all. Ive tested all grounds that I can find and they are all good. Ive tested the battery and all good. Ive tested the starter wires and all good. The purple one with the small nut is grounded and the big one has power. And I can hear a faint clicking when trying to start it but only if im under tge car and someone else tries to start it. I can not hear it from inside when I try and start it. I didnt think it was VATS because the security light would stay on if it was, correct? All fuses have been checked with a test light 30 times over. And all grounds that I can find have all been tested with a test lights as well. Maybe I missed some grounds so please feel free to list some that you may know of that are hard to find. Please help. I didnt touch anything that I know of that could've caused this all I did was tak the under dash out to look at the wires and the fuses out to test and replace them. I also took the dimmer switch and headlight switch out to make sure they were good and they are.

 

This is the time of year where batteries go bad. Even if it shows voltage, the cranking amps/capacity can be down. I would still jump the car and see what happens. If you are hearing the clicking of the solenoid on the starter, that would indicate to me that there either isn't enough power to get the starter to crank or the starter/solenoid is bad.

 

I already tried that and still nothing happened. And the starter is brand new. Just changed it like a month ago maybe 2 months at most. But does anybody here know what wires in the starter relay/TDR that's supposed to have power and when? Like does it only have power when you turn the key and try and crank the car or does it have power as long as the switch is on? The reason I ask is that the big yellow wire that goes to the relay doesn't have power but the other two have good grounds.

 

***Update*** I've checked the yellow wire from the ignition switch to the clutch switch to the relay and the yellow wire does have power in all three places. But the ignition cylinder that has 2 white wires wrapped in orange tape one has power but only when the car and the key is off. As soon as I put the key in all power to that is gone. Is that supposed to happen or no?

 

One wire is hot all the time and directly connected to the battery. The other gives power only when the ignition is selected on the cylinder.

 

The two white wires to the ignition cylinder are the VATS sensor wires. They are used to measure the resistance of the ignition key pellet to determine if the correct key is being used. If you're not getting a SECURITY light illuminated in the instrument cluster then any measurements made on those two wires are meaningless for diagnosing the starting problem.