Friend of mine almost burned his shop down and ruined the hood on his car with a similar "oh-shit" incident. Glad you weren't hurt and repairs can be made. Two steps forward and one step back.
Having to replace burnt up wiring sucks, but on the bright side, the rest of the car survived, and you werent hurt.
Yes there's a fuse at the starter In hindsight I should've just lengthen the wire and attached it, but I was excited to just fire it off and got ahead of myself. Honestly I thought power came out of the alternator, through that wire to fuse box, out of box down to starter and battery connection to charge battery. Didn't really think power traveled out of it and into the alternator, that's why I just bent it out in free space, if I knew it was hot I would've at least wrapped it in electrical tape.
Way back on my 1st day in auto shop class, the instructor brought out a plywood board with a simple wire circuit connected with a very small battery. The circuit was set up with a dead short with a 10 gauge "hot" wire. When he connected the battery, the threw a switch and the entire class got to see a short circuited wire meltdown in real life. The whole show lasted about 30 seconds before it melted the 10 gauge "hot" wire. I'm sure he had a battery protection built in, the board had already been used for several years. The lesson was: "This is what can happen when a 12 volt "hot" wire gets grounded out." Short, impactful, and something I never forgot. 12 volts doesn't sound like much power until you see it get shorted out and watch how quickly the damage occurs.
"Could have been worse." Yeah... I thought it WAS going to be worse with all your talk about "no gas leaks" and electricity. Fire bad. My truck had a fuel fire the other day out in the yard. AT THE FUEL TANK. Not fun. Wasn't sure whether I should put it out or run away and let it burn. You should have seen me running back and forth for the water hose and then the fire extinguisher. Got it out. Didn't blow up. Glad you didn't.
Bummer. One little short cut creates a whole bunch more work. Why does that sound so familiar? Glad it wasn’t worse and I sure don’t envy you finding and fixing the damaged wires and stuff.
Dang, I hate those little setbacks! But now you know what you're doing for the next Day or two. It's always the Small things that get us.
None of my cars will get wired, turn 72 in December. Goal is to have both in finish primer, doors all fit and gapped, hoods and fenders all aligned and I'll be happy. Bob
I look at the pictures and can smell the burnt wiring from here. Such a Bummer. Glad it wasn’t worse.
I'm pretty sure I'm just going to get another harness and rewire the whole thing, the fuse panel itself looks iffy plus all the wires being melted together, I'd hate to have missed something and have this fiasco happen again. Another reason is that I have several unused circuits and wires in this 21 circuit, like power window, power doors, etc etc that were just rolled up and wire tied, taking up space. I just need a basic harness that can handle an electric fan and fuel pump as "extras", probably go back to Painless since I have plugs at the gauge harness and couple other places that I'd like to just plug back into without rewiring all that too. Add it to the long list when you have 3 project cars, sadly this one was close only needing brake work after a "successful" start up, which it wasn't, some days I feel like throwing in the towel and letting someone else take the abuse awhile.
I was working as a gas station grease monkey when a car came in needing an alternator belt. Boy wonder here loosens up the alternator bolts letting it swing to where the battery wire hit the engine. I watched the wire burn while I was disconnecting the battery. After I make a change to my car I always crank it over with a remote starter so I can see if things are going wrong under the hood. Except once. That time I managed to leave a fuel line clamp loose. I spent the best part of a week cleaning up fire extinguisher powder but at least the car and garage didn't burn down.
Sucks to have something small cause a problem like that when it should have been a great moment. However glad it was just the harness and you weren’t hurt. Don’t ever quit, that’s how we rust back into the ground!
thanks for reminding me to also replace my generator wires... they're still original! just use a hand crank and magneto, with butane lamps!
Acetylene lighting is just the kind of rabbit hole I'd go down. I'm wary, though, because I might not come out for over a year ...
I had a hot wire escape from a connector behind the dash in my OT car going down the road. The bare end settled on the steering column, shorted out and melted, filling the entire cabin with smoke. Scary when you're cruising at 50. Always keep a fire extinguisher in the car. I didn't have one then and I'm very very lucky the wire burned itself out.
Ya really really dodged the bullet on that one Phil. Could of been the whole shop and all the So Cool Stuff in it! How come the Maxi Fuse didn't blow?
Or popped the fuse in the fuse box, since the stretch of wire melted was between fuse box and alternator.
Well that bites. I do know the feeling. I had a "56 chevy in high school and when I came out from 4th period class the kids walking towards me said "Hey your car's on fire". Smoked a lot of wiring under the hood and under the dash. Live and learn.
The Jalopy Journal
