Ok its a 90 Iroc 5.7 I initially pulled it into the driveway because I noticed the fans weren't coming on I found out its because previous owners had goofed around with the fan relays and the wiring and also it had a fried fan relay, now while I was troubleshooting that night the car ran fine it started up no problem, I went to bed came out the next afternoon to ground out the white and green wire for the primary fan to get it to work with key on, I decided to try and start it again and nothing, no click or anything :/ , battery has 13.2 volts and its only 4 months old, my car key has no vat chip on it so I'm guessing its already been bypassed? A fat black n red wire with a resistor with a smaller orange wire has power in and out of it but u can see at one point in its past that it got hot and melted some, i don'tknow where to look I hate electrical...do you guys have any ideas? It just seems like to me the starter isn't getting the signal to hit, all dash.lights work guages work fuel pump turns on...I'm stuck...

 

The first thing to do is to check that the battery has a full charge. A switch could have been left on, door not fully closed, or something to that effect that ran your battery down overnight. Then you need to see that wire connections are all tight and car is in park. Once you are sure of that then basic trouble shooting can begin. I'd do a search as I thought I saw a trouble-shooting thread for a car not cranking somewhere on the forum.

 

What do the lights in the dash do when you try to start the car? 100% sure the battery is good and EVERYTHING else works?
Key in turn to first notch, lights in dash on, Turn to try to start - Go off? No noise, at all? = Try your neutral safety switch, I bet the little tab broke off if it. You can manually override to test but I wouldn't drive like that for long, there for a reason.

 

Yeah key on, lights on dash all work like normal, I've put it in neutral and still nothing, not even a click...ill double check the battery when I get home but it read 13 something volts I honestly don't know what happened

 

But yeah dash lights go off like normal after a few seconds

 

You're battery solenoid is bad, if your getting gauge readings when you turn ignition that's what's wrong is your starter is not engaging, for example the battery cable goes straight to the starter solenoid if the solenoid is bad your starter will not kick the flywheel to attempt to crank the engine

 

It could be a bad starter solenoid as well.

The old school test would be to try hitting the starter with a hammer a few times.

 

Now that I think about it, after I started it the last time I noticed a poof of smoke come from right where the starter was I looked around n.thought it was oil but I didn't see any, I wonder if that was my starter or the starter solenoid that smoked? It was right in that area too..

 

hmmmmmmmmmm....... puff of smoke................ that could be it.

 

get underneath the car, try to wiggle the post on the solenoid if it moves it's bad if you saw smoke than that mean the solenoid either A went out or B the fusable link connected to the solenoid blew out.... if you see a wire on the ground under that car it was your fusable link and you can buy a spool of wire and rewire it... if not a starter was $45 with $10 core at oreilley and 2 bolts holding it on make sure you disconnect the battery in case starter tries to start itself if you ground the power wire.... hope this helps if not DM me i just went through this

 

Yeah sounds good Im going to go check it in a few minutes I was just waiting for it to cool off a bit , im going to check and see if the security light comes on too thanks for the help so far ya'll

 

Let me ask you guys something, if my key doesn't have a vat thing on it does that mean my car's vat has already been bypassed?

 

Actually scratch the jacking up and going under the car thing my jack finally gave out lol..gotta borrow my friends in a couple hours till I can get one on saturday

 

Starter solenoid power comes direct from the Ign switch so lots more would be dead if the main power supply to the Ign was blown
Plenty of things on the starter circuit to give problems ; the switch itself worn out , starter enable relay , NSS or clutch switch
and all the wiring/ connections in between those items

 

Most likely but nothing to say the bypass is still working properly , especially if done by installing resistors under the steering column.

1st check is to put 12V to the solenoid terminal on the starter.
If the engine cranks then you know the starter is fine and you have a problem with the circuit between the Ign switch and the solenoid.

If it doesn't work , your problem is with the starter itself

 

I just don't understand how the evening I was looking at the fan relays everything was fine, I go to bed wake up and the next day nothing works lol...13.2 volts is what the battery is supposed to be at right?

 

Sigh...ok man sounds good, I cant test anything tho till my buddy gets home so I can get his jack

 

update lol....a wire that had a crappy connection came off the solenoid, re-did it and she fired off. Now this weekend I'm going to clean up the tragic mess of fan relay wires the previous owner hacked up. Sooo thanks for trying to get me fired up again I appreciate it guys.

 

No problem that's a super easy fix, glad i saw your post cause i had to go through that same mess