Posting a new thread because I'm having new problems with the Firebird. The same thing happens. I turn the key, no crank. I think it might not be completely VATS related because I tried jumping the starter relay terminals like was mentioned in a different thread and it still would not crank. The only thing that seems to make it work again is time. Sometimes it's 20 minutes. Sometimes it's a couple hours. When I crank the car and it doesn't start, I notice the brake light comes on the dash and temp gauge goes to max. Also I find that the car usually ends up like this after I have reversed. In general the car stalls a lot but seems to stall more in reverse. Maybe rain water is leaking on something? Too many possibilities. But yeah basically I come back to the car and it just starts after a while. Not sure where to start. Could it be the Ignition Switch? Or maybe the neutral safety switch? If anyone has an idea how to test something I'll try it out.

Thanks,

 

A blind guess,............ Starter. Had a 2.8 the acted in a similar way. It was a random problem that happened more-&-more often. I replaced the starter and all was fine; till the engine started knockin' !!

 

Huh the starter? I never would have thought of that. But the previous owner said he changed the starter so it is more or less new. Looked pretty new when I took a look at it.

 

HA! I've had several starters that were bad right out of the box!
Also, distributors.
And alternators.
And ignition coils (that happened to me this week).

If you can jump the terminals ON THE STARTER SOLENOID and it doesn't crank (and the battery is charged), either your starter is bad, or the engine is locked.

 

Well I don't think the engine is locked up because eventually it does start. It's really strange though. It's like it doesn't want to start usually after it stalls in reverse. And then after some time it will just start normally again. I think the stalling might be due to the egr system since I have a check engine light on it. Going to replace the egr solenoid soon. But the car stalled on me in park a few times recently but it started right up. Weird. Gotta keep trying it and see if it doesn't start randomly besides just when it stalls.

 

I just read on this site that the starter failing to work could be due to something called heat soak. If it stalls and then starts after some time, could this be the cause of the problem?

 

Yup.

 

Happened again today. Waited two hours and the car started right up. Just to rule it out, would a bad battery make a weak crank or no crank at all? For me it's either no crank at all or a regular crank.

 

I think it's highly unlikely for a weak battery to suddenly be not weak. Have you checked the behavior of your starter relay when it does this? Is there completely no sound when attempting to crank?

Also, have you experienced issues with your turn signal switch?

 

Drove the Firebird today and it started each time no problem. Although I noticed the pressure gauge was on the high end when I first started driving it. Alright so definitely not the battery then. Are you talking about the starter relay in the kick panel under the dash? I don't hear any sounds from it when I turn the key although I did replace it once because it went bad. Also when I have this problem and I put a jumper into the connector, there is no crank. Or do you mean the relay on the starter itself? Honestly I don't hear anything when I turn the key. If the relay on the starter makes a sound then I can't hear it from inside. Maybe I can get a buddy to check but this problem is intermittent so I can't plan that out. But yes no sound at all when turning the key. My turn signal works fine but when I first got the car I had to replace the switch due to the fact that right turn signal wouldn't turn on. Also the highbeam switch and the defroster doesn't work.

 

To anybody wondering what the problem was, it ended up being the ignition switch. Car starts every time now.