Hello all,
I'm new to the corvette forum, so please excuse me if I don't use this correctly.
(**I am by no means a professional/Mechanic. I have an intermediate understanding**)

I have owned my (Automatic) 2004 C5 Corvette now for about 2 years. It has always run beautifully! Always kept up on maintenances, fixed problems immediately. I've spent a lot of time and money to acquire my Corvette. So, you can imagine I baby the hell out of my car. Last Sunday about 1 week ago, My fiancé and I got into the car for our Sunday drive. It started up fiercely as always, I went to shift into reverse and the shifter just freely flowed down through all the gears. I could tell it wasn't grabbing any of the gears. I took apart basically the whole dash, center console and removed the shifter as a whole. I found the issue, the mechanism under had snapped. I was able to grab the little metal wire/rod that is specifically responsible for changing the gears and actually shift through all the gears. Example I was able to put it into reverse and neutral blah blah blah. So I new what needed to be fixed. I went to start the car to see if I was able to manually drive my car that way. As I turned the key bam....no crank no start... I checked the battery (2 months old) I checked the connections. I ended up removing the ignition switch and examining that. I watched some videos about the whole does your key still have resistance or what ever it is, but my car has a VAT bypass, courtesy of the last owner. I checked all the fuses under the hood and only checked the "Ignition/starter" fuses under passenger glove box. I worked for about 3 hours but started getting nervous having to remove so much and unplug things...As I said before I'm no mechanic. I was finally able to get my hands on an OBD2 reader. I went and plugged it in and then turned the key and now nothing. No lights come on, no noises. Its acting as if the battery is dead. I hooked up the battery to a charger but wouldn't do anything. I checked the battery with a multimeter and it has charge. The car would only "power up" when I hook up one of those little portable jump starters. But once the jump starter stops the car shuts off. I went ahead and disconnected the battery terminals and now the charger is charging the battery?!?!? Please help with any advice or with some things to check that I haven't yet. I feel like I'm rapidly loosing my car...Obviously if it gets bad enough I will take it in to have a professional look, I'm just attempting to save as much as possible. Thank you in advanced!!

 

I will try to kick this off for others to chime in...you said you plugged in an OBD2....Your car has a built in diagnostic system, its own OBD.......you can check codes and trouble shoot in seconds. You can easily see how on the videos below and there are many more on YouTube:

 

Hello,
thank you so much for replying. After plugging in a OBD2 reader, I kept getting hit with a "Link Error". I did a couple of searches, couldn't really find an answer. And yes, I did remember that my car had one build in. I ran a diagnostic through the car and was hit with many horrors. These are all the codes that popped up. FYI none of these displayed while driving. These accumulated after all these issues started. Searched a few of them but couldn't really pinpoint an answer that nudged me in the right direction.
28-TCS: (C1214 HC)

40-RCM: (B0432-H),(B0503-H), (B0508-H), (B2593-H),

99-HVAC: (U1160 H)

A0-LDCM: (B2206 H), (B2282 H), (B2286 H), (B2284 H), (U1064 H)

A1-RDCM: (NO COMM.)

A6-SCM: (B0851 H), (B0856 H)

B0-RFA: (U1000 H), (U1255 H)

 

http://www.stengel.net/diccodes.htm

 

Moved to C5 Tech.

 

If you have the shifter assembly out, you no doubt disconnected the neutral safety switch. That’s the switch that only lets the car start in park or neutral.
Same circuit is used in a stick shift car for the clutch switch.

It won’t crank when disconnected.

 

 

RonSSNova - Would you happen to have a picture of what it looks like and where it connects. I did a google search and if they were correct, this Neutral Safety Switch is down the opening under the shifter and towards the back, connecting to the cable. If so I don't think I unplugged it. I just basically took out the nuts on the shifter and lifted it out. That's as far as I went. I mean I also removed the Ignition switch. But, if you have a picture to confirm I'm looking at the right thing id really appreciate it.

 

I’m probably wrong. I assumed it was on the shifter mechanism.

There is a combo switch on the trans in the back where the shift cable connects. But you didn’t mess with that. And that’s the end that normally breaks or comes off when the auto shifter goes limp.

Sorry about that

 

The c5 does not had a traditional obd2 port under the dash ? If your willing to believe that I got some swamp land in Florida for sale to …Sure it does have a built in informational code center built in . There’s also a traditional obd2 port yes and it’s right under the knee bolster sorry dude … might want to edit that .


Surely if the Op car was starting before then he def touched or unhooked something that is causing the car not to crank …re walk the steps you did ..

 

to be fair... there actually is lots of swamp land in Florida for sale...so...

 

I would put the car all back together exactly how it was carefully taking care to plug every thing back in, Your problem was with the shifter you should not have went any further.
Order new parts to get the cable to shifter fixed or replace shifter and go from there with clearing codes and re-scan for codes.
I think by disassembling the car you induced a number of problems.

By Putting the car back together your likely to fix and clear anything you induced hence the need to clear codes and then re scan checking again.

You should post some pics of what you found broke in shifter and fix that when your putting it all back together.