On Fantom Works last night they were working on a race car that had wire nuts used in home electrical. It caught on fire before they decided to rewire the car. Sent from my SM-N910V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I always use some kind of a battery disconnect switch and disconnect the battery when the car is parked. JWL
When I was a teenager my 1956 Ford caught on fire. I was driving down the road at dusk and noticed a glow coming out of the crack between the fender and the hood. I stopped, opened the hood and the battery was on fire. I put out the fire with a sweatshirt. That one was caused by a hole in the crossover pipe on the Y-blocks exhaust that was pointed right at the battery. My 1966 Mercury caught on fire once because it developed a hole in the transmission cooling line that was pointed right at the exhaust. That time I knew where there was a hydrant at a farm a little over 1/2 mile behind me so I drove backwards at high speed with the hood open to get to the hydrant to put the fire out and by the time I got there apparently the wind blew it out. Not as much fun as when the floor mat on my 1955 Ford caught fire because of a hole in the floor above the exhaust system. My friends were amazed when I put that out with my Pepsi. Not car- related but fire related. I was harvesting corn one night with our 503 International combine when a belt caught on fire. Back then I always carried 16 ounce bottles of Pepsi in the tool box. I just opened a bottle of Pepsi, shook it up with my thumb over the hole and used it as a fire extinguisher. Soda pop makes a great fire extinguisher but it leaves a sickly sweet smell in the air. Another not car-related fire incident. I was baling hay with our 1086 IH and Vermeer big round baler. I had trouble starting a bale in a thistle patch. I wet back to dig it out of the baler and try again but there was just a tiny bit of smoke coming out of the hay. I started to dig it out with thistles sticking my hands but really fast the tiny bit of smoke had grown into a lot of smoke so I decided to head for the pond. By the time I backed the baler down into the pond there were flames coming out of it. I couldn't get the fire immersed without backing in far enough to bury the tractor in the pond also which I didn't want to do so I jumped in the pond, took off one of my cowboy boots and used it to bale water onto the fire. I got the fire out but it had burnt three belts in two. At least I didn't burn the whole thing up tractor and all.
I had a cheapy fuel pressure gauge, plumbed by the P/O into the fuel rail in my previous O/T daily driver, develop a big-time internal leak. It was date night with the wife, a mile and a half from home, in the pouring rain and we're surrounded by raw gas and fumes. Long story, short, no fire and a happy ending, but it was one scary episode.
That is far too nice a car to see in flames, hope you find the cure or just drive it in the day time. Bob
I took it to the electric shop a buddy of mine he said the thing is shot and he also said to replace the regulator. thanks for all the responses
I work with military type wiring all day at work. That has to be right, strain relief, abrasion protection, etc. I bring all that into my car wiring. Out of date shrink sleeve, we throw that away but it is great for cars. I buy good lugs, have good crimp tools and strippers. Do it right from the start.
In the early 1970s, I had a wiring harness go up in smoke in just seconds from the hood hinge somehow grabbing and crushing it. Until that moment, I didnt even know the harness was there or in any danger. In the 90s a funny thing happened to a Buick I traded for. As the kids and I were leaving a store, we saw light smoke shadows whifting up from a hood crack. I lifted the hood after checking that it wasnt hot or had flames under it. It was the alternator smoldering and shorting itself out more and more as the wires got hotter. I told the kids to stand back and just watch. I went into Sears, bought a large wire cutter pliers and returned to the car to clip the battery cable. By that time, someone must have stuck their nose in my business, and called the fire dept. A fire truck was down the street and starting to wander around the large parking lot at the far end. I lifted my hood to clip the alternator power cable, small flames escaped the alternator and started burning my oily engine wiring harness. I quickly clipped the cable, took my own powder fire extinguisher to stop the flames before the fire truck found us. I told them to go away, there is no fire. I didn't want to get a 600$ or 800$ bill, so I chased them away saying someone must have panicked but it wasnt me Now I couldnt get home, and had an engine with melted wires and corrosive extinguisher crud all over it. With no other way to get the kids home, I went back into Sears and bought some extension cords and a few rolls of electrical tape. One at a time, I clipped each burnt wire, and replaced each with a cutting from an extension cord. After the harness turned into a taped up bundle of extension cord wires, I still had to patch THREE plug wires. Hmm. All I could do was substitute a double-wire lamp cord for the missing sections of melted plug wires. and lots of tape. I even used several strips of electrical tape as rubber bands to suspend each "plug wire" away from each other and keep a distance from any metal to prevent sparking away the energy to ground untill it reached each plug. So here was a burnt Buick engine, with fire extinguisher powder all over it, extension cords for plug wires, and strips of electrical tape spiderwebbing all around to keep the wires from touching or cross firing or laying on something, and somehow I drove the kids home. The funniest part is that I drove it just like that for a few months before finally pushing it off the cliff (scrapyard) and switching to a better car. To this day, my grown kids still laugh about that rickety Buick that could hardly pull the boat up a hill, and they always heard it coming. It was a car that was so much a part of all the fun we had. WHY BE ORDINARY ?
The Jalopy Journal
