I just finished my swap but now my car won't start, the motor won't even turn over. The only electrical connections I have made are the VSS on the back of the tranny. my question is what do i need to wire up to make my reverse lights work and what do i need to connect/disconnect to make my car start? it is a 91 Trans-am

 

OK No offense, just so I don't leave anything out, but you are pushing down the clutch pedal while cranking, right?

More likely problems... The old auto had a signal to prevent cranking in anything other than P or N. That signal was driven off the shifter, or a sender in the tranny. I am not sure which, I haven't had to trace it :-).

I THINK (but am not positive) that manuals have the same signal, except it is driven off the clutch pedal... I.E. you can't crank except when the pedal is down. If you simply disconnected the wires you didn't know what to do with, that's most likely your problem.

A simple (but unsafe) fix is find that wire and ground it. Then you could crank at any time. Unsafe since then you could crank with it in gear. The better fix is wire it up the same way the manuals were from the factory. Someone with a manual will have to give you more details, I'm an auto guy :-).

As far as the backup lights go, there should be a sender in the tranny, some plug that you didn't hook up. What kind of tranny did you install? That might help people give you more specific answers.

 

I haven't disconnected anything (seeing as the car was an auto the clutch sensor would not be there in the first place) , I have the plug from the auto shifter it has like 5 or 6 wires on it. I assume two get wired to the tranny for the reverse lights. now I also believe that nuetral safety swicth will also be there I want to know which wires they are and how do i disable them. I am not worried about starting in gear right now. just starting the car...period

 

well it should have a purple and a yellow wire in the harness the plugged into the auto shifter assembly... if you jump these two wires your car should start... someone esle can maybe verify this... Kevin

 

Not sure the colors one's purple I'm pretty sure though. Either way they're two of the thicker wires in the harness. And you don't ground the wire! The p/n switch is simply a switch mounted on the shifter (has nothing to do with the tranny,) that when the car is in either park or neutral it hits a microswitch that connects the two wires. So just jump 'em out .

 

Thanks guys, I figured it would have to do with the switch in the automatic tranny's shifter, and not the clutch safety swicth( seeing as the car doesnt even know there is a clutch) I assume that the reverse light wires would be two of the wires left over from that same harness right?

 

Sorry about that. Many switches in the car go from hot to ground I shouldn't have just assumed that this one was the same.

What I meant about the clutch safety switch is you might want to INSTALL one. Obviously the car doesn't have one now :-).

 

I don't know where you got your clutch pedals, but mine came with a small plunger type switch on the clutch pedal. This is the clutch cut out. when I do my swap I just have to hook the purple and yellow wires up to this and my clutch cut out will work

 

And yeah there are also two thinner wires that are used for the reverse lights, I don't remember the colors again, but I don't know how you're gonna hook that up to the new shifter? Unless it came w/ a reverse light switch.

 

THe switch is on the tranny for the reverse lights. Just conenct the wires to the connector.

 

the clutch safety and the park/neutral safety is the same thing. when you switch from auto to manual your supposed to run those two wires to the switch on the clutch pedal.

 

I figured out was goes where, thanks for all your help. What I did was jump a fuse to the two fat wires gree and prurple I think That allows me to crank the car only if the fuse is there. the reverse light wires are the two wires next to the nuetral safety wires I ahve to wire those to the tranny now. but the car cranks on now.