Battery ground wire question

[olzed]

Interesting!. What are the bugs?

[Bonzi Lon]

You might consider going through the fuel system, injectors back to tank, filters, to remove possibilities of junk / rust particles and the over 2 year old fuel that is left in the tank. Start fresh.

Bonzi Lon

[garretthes]

Brown recluse spiders. And I'm borderline arachnophobic...

[garretthes]

Update: Tried to crank it again today with gas. No luck, more wires smoking. Not nearly as bad as before but still there even with the ignition on the wires smoke.

Dang! Is there another engine ground other than the one on top of the engine with the harness?

[Zed Head]

Update: Tried to crank it again today with gas. No luck, more wires smoking. Not nearly as bad as before but still there even with the ignition on the wires smoke.

Dang! Is there another engine ground other than the one on top of the engine with the harness?

If you have wires smoking with the ignition on, it looks like you already have too many grounds. Find the "extra" ground (the short) and the proper ones might work correctly.

You may have already created new shorts from wires melting together. It might be too late.

[garretthes]

May just replace the wiring from the 83 parts car

[garretthes]

Scratch that. The wiring from the 83 has a burned ground as well. I think it's the part that connects to the coil negative. It's burned at least 12 inches down the harness.

Not being an electrical genius, what's the best way to test for a short to ground?

[Gary in NJ]

If you have wires smoking with the ignition on, it looks like you already have too many grounds. Find the "extra" ground (the short) and the proper ones might work correctly.

You may have already created new shorts from wires melting together. It might be too late.

Funny, but sadly true.

You might just start by disconnecting everything in the area of smoke and reconnect on-by-one to isolate the shorted system(s).

[garretthes]

Great! The smoke is coming from inside the dash. So I guess the dash has to come off

[Frankensteinz2]

i hate spiders!

[geezer]

Not being an electrical genius, what's the best way to test for a short to ground?

The safest way to test for a short to ground coming from under the dash, without letting more of the smoke out is this: Pull the fuses from your fusebox. This will isolate the individual circuits, allowing you to pinpoint the short. Using a multimeter or a simple test light, connect one lead to the battery (+) and use the other lead/probe to check each fuse cavity/holder. If the test light glows, you have found the bad circuit and also determined which side of the fuse the circuit is shorted to ground. It is then just a matter of following the circuit until the cause is found. A wiring diagram will be helpful also. There are often many points in a particular circuit that enable you to further isolate a short to ground, such as disconnecting a connector. You just have to get in there and use the process of elimination. Don't pull out your dash prematurely, its probably not neccesary. You will gain more knowledge by systematically testing for a short to ground, than having us guys play guessing games. As already stated, good grounds are very important also.

[Zed Head]

Great! The smoke is coming from inside the dash. So I guess the dash has to come off

Examine the fusible links first. Didn't you say that they are in the car? If you're lucky it may be a fusible link that was melting, like it's supposed to, not your harness wires. The insulation on the links doesn't melt completely, just the wire inside, so you'll need to take a good look at them. I don't know if they smoke when they go or not. If you find a bad link, figure out what wires it feeds and follow those out to find the short.

If all of your links are good, expose the ignition switch and wires on the steering column. If you had smoke, you should have bubbled, melted looking insulation on a wire or two. Look at the wires by the fuse box and fusible links.

Edit - I was writing as Geezer was posting. I think we're on the same page though. You need to find the circuit that is shorted before you start tearing things apart.

Disconnect your battery until you find the melted insulation. Don't use the smoke to find the short. More smoke just means more damage.

Edited September 4, 2010 by Zed Head