Grounding Fire (almost) - Now What?

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67CudaBob

67CudaBob

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Smoked wiring.jpg


Car started acting up about a mile from home, thought I was losing my battery or alternator, but when I got it home and popped the hood, I see a 4 inch section of wiring is nothing but ashes. My guess is there was crack in the wiring casing that grounded out on the motor. Right below the gas line too - very lucky it did not torch the car.

Is the repair as simple as unwrap what is left - cut as much back as appears burnt, and build a new harness and splice it in? Best I can tell, the horn wires, the alternator wires, and the sending unit seen are the only wires in the bundle that burnt. Talk slow to me - electrical is greek to me.

For reference: 1967 Dart GT Convertible, 273 with aftermarket LD4B manifold.

Thank you in advance.
 
best bet is to replace from alt/sending unit etc., back to the firewall. I do not like to splice, it adds 2 more connections, both sides of a butt connector or at least one if soldered properly. If harness is relatively new, splice may not be to bad to get you going again, but would still replace the complete alt wire.
 
Well first off I'm happy your car didn't burn down. Usually an alternator wire burning up cause the whole car to burn down more than half the time.

You can patch in new section of wire if you choose. However a wire burnt up like this mean the heat from that burn up ran up and down the length of that wire. depending on how hot it got the copper could be crystallized along the wire and making the whole connection questionable.

I would say yes you can patch it. but if your wiring is still the stock wiring it might be time to replace that part of the harness. Or even do a custom wiring job.

just my 2 cents
 
If you have a spare good alt bolt it on and then replace all the wires. Then buy a cheap fire extinguisher and keep it in the car
 
Glad it did not cost you your ride!

50 year old wiring deserves to be replaced point to point. Get yourself a replacement M&H harness from Year One or as some say others! Do not splice!

Lost one that way and the price of brand new harness is pennies compared.
 
I would replace the engine harness but I would also search for the root cause of this failure. Like how/where that electric choke was tapped in maybe? You wouldn't want to buy a reproduction harness and have the same thing happen again. Good luck with it.
 
Thank you all - outside of the carb wire, it is 50 year old wiring, so I think I will go with the replacement harness and do it right.

Should I worry that anything else that maybe got taken out of play with the ground out? Do I change out the alternator and voltage regulator to be safe? Will my gauges likely be damaged?
 
Maybe, hard to know. I would bring you VR and ALT up to a parts store to have them checked. Your gauges if working prior to shutting down may be fine. Worst case is the temp gauge went to max for a short period but likely is ok.
 
Yeah, check that firewall bulkhead plug-in. It is probably melted too, especially if that alternator wire got real hot. .
 
67CudaBob said:
Thank you all - outside of the carb wire, it is 50 year old wiring, so I think I will go with the replacement harness and do it right.

Should I worry that anything else that maybe got taken out of play with the ground out? Do I change out the alternator and voltage regulator to be safe? Will my gauges likely be damaged?
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The pic shows lots of tape and even at the temp sensor. Has it been spliced before? What mods have been done other than electric choke? When the main battery feed from the alternator is involved I would be very careful in my assessment. Did the fusible link blow?
 
1969383S said:
The pic shows lots of tape and even at the temp sensor. Has it been spliced before? What mods have been done other than electric choke? When the main battery feed from the alternator is involved I would be very careful in my assessment. Did the fusible link blow?
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Bulkhead connector appears intact and unmelted.

Before I bought the car, the engine was out and rebuilt. Perhaps they got carried away with the tape - nothing else appears modified to my untrained eye. I had the carb and manifold put on a couple years back my the local mopar shop - they may have gotten tape happy as well.

Where would I locate the fusible link to check it?
 
Absolutely pull apart the bulkhead connector and check/ repair it, and seriously consider doing the ammeter bypass. Member "crackedback" I believe sells a nice bypass cable.

If you don't have, go to MyMopar and download a service manual for free as well as the aftermarket wiring diagrams on the same site, the go read the MAD electrical article:

Catalog

BEFORE YOU RECONNECT everything, turn everything in the car off, and insure EVERYTHING is inactive, including the dome lights, etc. Connect the ground cable to the battery LAST with a large wattage bulb in series with the battery ground. If there is a short, the lamp will light, instead of burning down something else
 
67CudaBob said:
Bulkhead connector appears intact and unmelted.

Before I bought the car, the engine was out and rebuilt. Perhaps they got carried away with the tape - nothing else appears modified to my untrained eye. I had the carb and manifold put on a couple years back my the local mopar shop - they may have gotten tape happy as well.

Where would I locate the fusible link to check it?
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It is at the bulkhead on the harness from the battery starter relay, forward light harnesses. If you still have power inside then it survived.
 
Or use your multi meter on 10amp scale to check for current draw. One lamp in these old babies will draw lots of current!

And like Dell says if you do not care about originality to say do the Mad bypass. I did not.
 
1969383S said:
It is at the bulkhead on the harness from the battery starter relay, forward light harnesses. If you still have power inside then it survived.
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After it sat out overnight, I disconnected the alternator and started the car to pull it into the garage - the dome lights worked and the car started up and pulled in fine. I assume that means the link survived?
 
Your fusible link if still present is fine!!

I would not have started it but you came out ok!
 
I have a 5.9 on a stand, maybe this was a sign that it is time for a Magnum swap as long as I am down. I better beer on this for a little bit.
 
67Dart273 said:
Absolutely pull apart the bulkhead connector and check/ repair it, and seriously consider doing the ammeter bypass. Member "crackedback" I believe sells a nice bypass cable.

If you don't have, go to MyMopar and download a service manual for free as well as the aftermarket wiring diagrams on the same site, the go read the MAD electrical article:

Catalog

BEFORE YOU RECONNECT everything, turn everything in the car off, and insure EVERYTHING is inactive, including the dome lights, etc. Connect the ground cable to the battery LAST with a large wattage bulb in series with the battery ground. If there is a short, the lamp will light, instead of burning down something else
Click to expand...


Thank you for the article link - I did get a kit from Crackedback a while back and have been waiting on a potential Magnum swap, and I do have a wiring diagram somewhere. I will take the bulkhead apart and check it out as well. Thank you for your input - I really do appreciate it.
 
For what it's worth I replaced every harness that M&H sells through Year One and sent them what Is not offered and they built me new exact replacements.

It lasted this long and should last as long or more considering no one should be hacking on them. I am 55 so it will last through my life for sure!
 
bulkhead 1.jpg
bulkhead 2.jpg


This doesn't look so good. I don't believe it is melted though, it appears to be broken off more than melted. And certainly in need of a cleaning!
 
Frugly!!!

It looks like your issue may have started on the inside. That bulkhead connector does not look well. The engine side looks surprisingly better.

The others may be as bad! Hope not for you! Check them all!
 
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