Hey, sorry if this is the wrong section, but i had a rough night. My 94 z28 just died in the middle of the road, like someone took the key out of the ignition. The beeper came on for the headlights, etc. Parked, the key does nothing but turn on the radio. No dash lights. When i try to crank it, the electric fans shut off. So that means something is going on in the lock cylinder? Someone help please! very close to just selling the car at a huge loss. It had an intermittent no crank condition before. But the dash lights still came out, just no starter engagement temporarily. Now the car is just totally dead

 

battery good? even if it was ignition switch the lights on the dash should still come on.

def check battery, clean terminals, get back to us after that. always start with the simplest solutions but i am sure you knew that already :p

i know when i lost a fuel pump and an ignition switch both times, i cranked it so much that i killed the battery. if you did that bad enough im sure you could bring it to a point where lights and all won't work at all, so it could be something else.

 

battery is fine. Headlights work nice and bright. battery is at 12+ volts. Its like the lock cylinder isnt doing anything. The radio comes on when you turn it to on, but thats it. No other lights. The beeper comes on if i put the headlights on, if the key is on, out of the ignition, or anything else. The car has been giving me trouble trying to get the key to go from lock to any other position, so i think something may be broken inside the cylinder

 

it does sound like something funky in your cylinder,what about the security chip maybe it took a dump,and could always be a bad ground somewhere...been thru those with past fbods

 

http://shbox.com/ignsw/ign_switch_repl.html

 

oh snap. have fun with that one OP, its a bitch to do. i would rather do plugs for 2 years of time straight than an ign switch

 

i had alot of ignition switch problems with a 95 z28 i had. i rhad to replace it twice within 6 months. the second time i put relays on the ignition wires to get the load off the switch and never had a problem again.

before you go changing the ignition switch though just check the fusible links just to make sure its not an easy fix before you go buy an expensive switch and go through the haslle of changing it. or you could always go buy the switch, unplug the wires out of the one in the car and plug them into the new switch without installing it and operate it by hand and see if that fixes your problem. if it does, enjoy changing it out. if not, you can return it and start looking somewhere else for the problem.

 

I had my uncle look at the car who has been a chevy mechanic for 15+ years, and he said its either a bad ground or the switch. I bought a lock cylinder at work, i got it open box for like 5 bucks, but i guess i wont need it. The one in my car was getting funky and hard to turn so i immediately thought of that. But that ignition switch definitely seems to be it. I can get that at work too! (autozone) thanks a ton for that link, shbox. Very nice site

 

yeah i had the same problem and it was my ignition switch...actually though i could get mine to start but i had to hold the key back to the point of almost kicking the starter on for the car to stay on lol.... i didn't think it was too bad to replace, and while i was at it i got to fix my bright/dim switch because i would have to pull it back really hard to get it to work and it was just the rod being out of place and not in its little hole.... i didn't think it was too bad to replace though as long as ya pull the whole column