I was driving my 1984 Camaro Z28 and it suddenly fell dead. I coasted to a stop put the transmission into the parked position and turned the key to the start position and nothing happen. The starter did not engaged matter of fact nothing worked when I turned the ignition to ACC, Start and Run positions. I checked the battery cables and they were okay. I turned on the lights and blew the horn while turned the ignition key to the start position the lights and horn was not affect in any way. Everything works that is wired hot and nothing works that engineered to work when the key is turned to ACC, Start or Run position. I checked the fuses and replaced the alternator because it was bad. What’s seems to be my problem?

 

so the lights work and stay on even in the crank position??? you could have dirty connection at batt terminals. Also you might wanna check to see if you have power at the starter trigger wire while cranking (need two people to do this)....if you do you may have a bad starter. If no power down at starter I would suspect the ignition switch.

 

Did you ever figure out what went wrong? I'm having the same problem with my 89 RS

 

It sounds like your actual ignition switch, not the lock cylinder, is bad.

What I gather is everything that works without a key in the car, works.
Everything that normally works with the key in acc/on position, does not work.

Ignition switch.

 

I dont if it helps but I had a problem similar to this and I found out the engine coolant level was low. After I filled it up and let the car sit overnight it started right up.

 

I replaced the ignition switch, to no avail. Still have nothing at the key. Not sure what I'm missing, most likely small easy fix.

 

Do you have tilt-wheel? Since our cars use a metal rod to actuate the ign switch, tilt-wheel can mess that up (I can not start my car if my steering wheel is too high up).

 

For what it's worth, I had the exact same thing happen a long long time ago. It turned out that my new really expensive accel dfi computer system fried itself while driving down the road. I was able to unplug the dfi computer and use the stock computer which got everything running again. So, maybe the stock computer fried itself.

 

Fixed my problem. I had checked everything topside, finally got underneath to check the fusable links at the starter. One was fried. A new wire nut and I'm ready to go. Thanks for the suggestions.

And remember, no matter how bad it seems, it's always something simple.