Well, after not being able to get my car started a week or so ago, I was told that it was probably the wire that connects the ignition key cylinder to the theft deterrent (VATS) module. So, I finally got to taking it all apart the other day. It sucked because with work and playing softball and going to the gym, I only had an hour or so at a time to work on it till last night. Anyway, I got the air bags diabled, removed the air bag from the steering wheel. Then I rented a steering wheel puller from O'riley's, then pulled the steering wheel off. Then after reading up on how to remove the Air Bag clock spring on my ALLData.com subscription, removed it. Then saw the locking plate and was like.."WTH??" (I thought I'd be able to get to the cylinder after removing the clock spring.) 
So, I read up a little more and realized that I had the locking plate compressor in the steering wheel puller kit. So, off that came, after a long wrestling match with the retaining clip. (It's amazing how well I was able to bend that thing back to shape. 
) I got the locking plate and the horn contact out. Then came the turn signal assembly. This was where I got bogged down because I had to remove all ten of the wires from the wiring harness under the dash and pull them up through the steering column to get that assembly out of my way. Then, FINALLY, I could get to the key cylinder. Sure enough, that tiny little wire sat there broken in two. The cylinder came out faily easily. Here is what that part of the process looked like.
This was before I was able to remove the turn signal assembly.
[IMG]
http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa240/Svnthrain30/IMG_20081016_0001_1.jpg[/IMG]
Putting everything back together went pretty quickly after i got the wire from the new cylinder routed back through the steering column, along with the wires from the turn signal. There were many times during the process when I wondered if I shouldn't have just put everything back together and had it towed to a dealership. But, I got 'er done. Feels pretty good considering the hardest job I had done on a car before that was changing the ignition control module on the car a few years ago. All told, it cost me about $200 to do this job. Not bad considering it would have cost me close to $500 to get it done at a dealership. 
So, I read up a little more and realized that I had the locking plate compressor in the steering wheel puller kit. So, off that came, after a long wrestling match with the retaining clip. (It's amazing how well I was able to bend that thing back to shape. ) I got the locking plate and the horn contact out. Then came the turn signal assembly. This was where I got bogged down because I had to remove all ten of the wires from the wiring harness under the dash and pull them up through the steering column to get that assembly out of my way. Then, FINALLY, I could get to the key cylinder. Sure enough, that tiny little wire sat there broken in two. The cylinder came out faily easily. Here is what that part of the process looked like. This was before I was able to remove the turn signal assembly.
[IMG]
http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa240/Svnthrain30/IMG_20081016_0001_1.jpg[/IMG]
Putting everything back together went pretty quickly after i got the wire from the new cylinder routed back through the steering column, along with the wires from the turn signal. There were many times during the process when I wondered if I shouldn't have just put everything back together and had it towed to a dealership. But, I got 'er done. Feels pretty good considering the hardest job I had done on a car before that was changing the ignition control module on the car a few years ago.
All told, it cost me about $200 to do this job. Not bad considering it would have cost me close to $500 to get it done at a dealership.
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