i was doing a test run on my air compressor in the new car. had the compressor working the 5 gallon tank for no more then 1 minute and it started to smoke the line right by the inline fuse. never did this before in the old car. what would cause something like that to get so hot to start smoking?

it has a 12ga power wire with a grounded relay with 14 ga control wires (2) and a 30 amp inline fuse. any idea?

 

First off, following standard wireing guidelines a 12g wire should be fused with a 20 A . Yes the 12g can handle a bit more but 20A is the "standardized" fuse size for 12g.

Second,

Is the wiring set up the same (same length of wires) as the old car? The best situation would be to have relay as close to the compressor as possible and have the power lines that feed the compressor as short as possible.

Third,
The wires on the fuse holder, are they also 12g or are they smaller? Some times fuse holder wires are 16g. The wire that is the smallest or has the most resistance (possible bad connection) will get the hottest soonest.

 

i didn't following any diag. air ride hooked up the equipment in the last car. i unhooked it and then hooked it back up as it were in this one. so if something is wrong i'll have to go through and change it but it is the way they did it.

the wires for the relay are actually quite long. looks like i need to just go through it all again.