So yesterday, went to start my car after some relatively hard driving and *boom*, no start and smoke. So I replaced the battery and all the cables.

Start my car easily and it drives fine. Give it a little bit of gas and then *boom*, smoke. Pull over into a parking lot and see the ground wire from the neg burnt to a crisp. No damage elsewhere else.

I'm running a 350 pulled from a 74 police interceptor. Currently have an Optima Red Top battery (brand new) with the positive terminal going to the starter and the 10 gauge going to the back of the alternator. My negative terminal goes to the front of the alt via a bolt and to the 10 gauge to the chassis. Did I mess something up?

 

Second melted ground thread ive seen today

Remove the ground ring on the alt bracket, clean it very well with a wire brush or something abrasive so its back to being bare copper/steel. Next find an unused bolt hole near the alt on the BLOCK. Again clean it profusely until its bare iron

Reinstall and see if the problem persists. You dont have to wait until its smoking, just have a friend touch the cable to see if it gets hot

Also, you need to add a ground strap from the engine to the chassis

 

I had the same flipping prob this afternoon only minor diff (305). I saw red smoke from under the hood and was like wow thats an absolute first. It was the insulating rubber burning off the wire. Deff gonna try to ground it to the block. Thnx.