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Help! Electrical fire an smoke???

Detroitmike

Member
Ok, were do I start. Just got my t bucket a month or so ago. Comming from a local car show an the whole electrical system goes up in smoke. Broke down on side of road an a bad area to boot.
Get it towed home, an go through the hot rod an find out the kill switch is toast (melted). Ground wire from fuse box to back of car is melted which in turn melted other wires too. Great.
Repair switch an all bad wires an ground with new higher gauge wiring. Fire it up runs for a few secs an now the light wires catch fire an so did the ground wire an switch all fryed. I search the whole car an didn't find any exposed wires or bad wires. Question is what would cause this to happen. I'm not a great with electrical. Any info would help. Lost for know
Thanks mike
 
I'm not an electrical whiz by any means but I believe you have a short somewhere. Apparently your ground is hot as well as the wires that are supposed to be hot. The thing I don't understand is why are you burning up wires and not blowing fuses? I would check the fuse box and make sure you don't have a short there that's making the ground hot also.
 
Mike, could you provide us with a diagram or, even better, pictures of the damage. Is your wiring system from one of the many loom makers? Which one?
Why do you have a kill switch in the back of the car? Are you drag racing it?

John
 
Very disturbing. This sounds like a poltergeist. The car was running fine, and then the electrics went wonky. So something changed. Pics and a wiring diagram could help us. The likeliest problems are insulation worn thru somewhere or bad grounds.

Questions to help us:

Where is the battery? (I'm guessing in the bed). How is the negative terminal connected to ground (to frame or big cable to motor or fuse box or something else) and how is the positive terminal connected: to the kill switch and from there to ignition switch or fuse block and anything else? The kind of damage you describe takes big amps, so little wires and fuses are not the source of your trouble. Is the kill switch at the battery and in the positive cable? You mentioned a ground wire from the fuse box to back of car was melted. That sounds like the positive side of the fuse block contacted the negative (ground) side and you would then have a dead short thru the wiring and the kill switch and the battery, which means big smoke. How does the fuse box look? Examine it and the wiring to it closely. The tiniest nick can touch the wrong place and start a chain reaction (I've been there).
 
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----What Potvin Said!----
I know this is kinda late here, I'm sorry for your woes.
When you buy a car such as ours, before you hand over your cash, YOU, the BUYER, NEEDS to go over SAID CAR with a fine tooth comb. Look for weld marks on the frame thats been touched up with rattlecan, bunch of butt splices and ragged electrical tape, Battery cables against headers, and my one major pet peve....Electrical lines right next to your fuel lines!

Sit down, take your time, and rewire the car. Rip all the old stuff out, and start over. Fuse everything! And I mean everything! Run Alot of grounds....Run good clean tight connections, Do it right the 1st time and you'll never have to worry about it unless rats invade it.
Corrosion and/or loose wires= resistance that ='s heat. After you get your car completely rewired, get a fuse setup from a RV. Get the Fuse holder and install this just ahead of your fuseblock. Start at 50 amps, turn on everything all the pumps fans lights everything.... and start the car also. You'll pop it, and just keep going up till you can run everything, and start the car. Thats the size protection fuse you need.

Your ordinary fuses will save your small circuits, but should your main cable direct short, this 1 fuse will save your car from burning to the ground....its extra protection....
 

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