Car starts will not stay running

[hos573]

1996 Buick Skylark with 3.1 V6. When the key is turned on the radio, door chime, power windows, power lock, headlights, taillights, turn signals, ect... all work. The instrument panel lights with all the warnings and such does not illuminate. The fuel pump primes and the car will start for about 2 seconds then die. If the instrument panel lights work the car starts fine. Sometimes you get the instrument panel lights sometimes you don't. It has been getting worse.

I have read several threads and searched the internet. The theft light is not on. Neither is the check engine light. The low coolant light is on but has appropriate amount of fluid as well as all other fluids. The gas guage has not worked for a long time.

I have cleaned battery terminals, new battery, checked the 6 relays under the hood, replaced the 6 relays under the hood, checked all the fuses, checked for loose wires, cleaned and checked grounds, hooked to a computer to check for codes, did the passlock theft reset several times. Read the Haynes manual and can not get it fixed.

Please help. Thanks

[Airjer_]

Maybe a bad ignition switch?

[hos573]

I considered that. Or possibly the computer. There are two wires coming from the ignition switch. I think they are suppose to have a certain resistance across them? I can't find what the resistance should be.

Also there is a round deal at the bottom of the stearing column about as round as a silver dollar and say 1/4" think below the lock cylinder that has some wires. I don't know what that is?

[Airjer_]

The two wires are coming out of the tumbler. Those are the wires for the passlock system. I think there white or grey. The other piece with with all the wires is the ignition switch. should be 6 wires or so some of them pretty heavy gauge.

[Selectron]

I had a look on the Autozone website (Repair Info section) and although they do have some wiring diagrams for that model, neither the power distribution nor instrument panel illumination diagrams are included. If you have a Haynes manual or similar, check which fuse feeds the instrument illumination, or sometimes the fuse functions are listed in the owner's manual, so check that too.

Edit: I just read your opening post again and I see that you do indeed have a Haynes manual, so check the wiring diagrams section and see if you can find the instrument illumination circuit.

Then next time the instruments fail to illuminate, check for voltage at the fuse, using either a multimeter or a 12 volt test lamp. If voltage is present then that would suggest an open-circuit between the fuse and the instrument panel, so start checking that circuit's wires and connectors. If there's no voltage at the fuse then clearly the problem is before that point - the fuse might itself be fed from yet another fuse, might be fed from a relay, or might be fed directly from the ignition switch, so see if you can determine that from the wiring diagrams.

I wouldn't expect a lack of instrument illumination to prevent the engine from running, so whatever the problem is, it's presumably affecting more than one circuit, which is to say that when the instrument illumination circuit goes dead, one or more other circuits are probably losing power too.

[hos573]

I did some more tinkering and the "black box" on the left side of the steering column seems to be where the problem is at. It has one plug with about six wires some heavier guage than others like mentioned. Also a plug with four wires, again with different guage wires.

Cleaned the connections and seems to be working properly again for now.

I was a little thrown off in my search for the problem. On different posts about similar problems for the same car people kept mentioning the 6 wires that were ribbon style on the right side of the steering column. That doesn't seem to exist on my car.

Thanks for all the help. If this were an older carb engine I wouldn't have had a problem. lol