Franco85Z

Hi everyone! So my car caught fire yesterday. In a weird way but it did. Maybe due to my gross negligence. Fire started from the steel braided clutch line I had. I have a wilwood floor mount pedal that has a hose go thru the trans tunnel. Car isn't finished or road worthy but it does start and rn. I heat it up every now and them. But to the fire. Something is going on with the clutch cable. Somehow 12v its getting into the line and grounding on the trans tunnel. What happens is when I got to crank the car I get the initial click of the starter and then smoke from the area the clutch line is. First day was just smoke but the line got cooked and failed. I thought the TOB fitting was just loose to I tightened it. Line got brake fluid all over it. Tried to start it again then it smoked up again and the caught fire. Starter just clicks then smoke and fire.

Is this my starter somehow? But why the clutch cable and not anything else? Starter is a powermaster mini starter. It's all wired the same way from factory. The battery is a optima red top. Relocated to the trunk. Negative is grounded to one of the old exhaust brackets. Positive from the battery runs throughout the car onto a bulkhead that then feeds 12v to anything that use to get 12v when the battery was in the front.

Friend told me just to redo the entire harness. I don't use anything besides whatever the ecm needs to run the engine. And stock lights and turns. Everything else is not used. I even have a sperate fuse box for the rest of the stuff I've added to the car. My harness and wiring is a mess. The stock stuff it. Previous owner has a bunch of fuse holders under the steering and splices.

Any ideas? Maybe some starter wires got cooked? I dont know. I just don't want my car to catch fire.

OrangeBird

iTrader: (1)

The cause here is very simple ;

You do not have a proper negative connection between the battery's negative post and the engine block , and your poor braided steel clutch hose has been forced to carry the starter's current in that proper connection's absence . A battery in the trunk , grounded to the car's body , still leaves the engine block itself needing a negative ground , try running a big heavy wire solidly connected from the block to the car's body and I'll bet your steel clutch hose stops melting when you crank the starter ......

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Negative battery cable should go to the BLOCK. NOT the body, NOT the "frame", NOT ANYTHING ELSE besides THE BLOCK. Direct connection, unbroken, no stopping along the way, no intermediate connections, no splices, NOTHING. Battery terminal to BLOCK.

Then add a substantial (batt cable size) additional wire from the block to the chassis. The same way the factory did. Their method was that thick braid from the head to the firewall. They also used a pigtail coming off of the cable terminal to the "upper frame" just below the top of the fender.

IROCZman15

iTrader: (25)

yea, if you are just grounding the battery to an old exhaust bracket on the chassis, that is not a good idea. you need to ground the battery DIRECTLY to engine block (which the starter is mounted to). but some heavy gauge cable and run it from the battery to a clean surface on the engine block.

Franco85Z

Damn it. I thought having it grounded the way I did was the way to do it. My fault for checking videos only. They all just grounded to the chassis and called it good. I still have the cable that was mounted to the alternator. I take it that's where I want my cable to go back to. I probed the entire body once it was ground everything lit up. I do have some ground wire left. Not enough to to go from trunk to engine block.

Any ideas why it just started to do it now? Should I also check my starter for melted cables?

IROCZman15

iTrader: (25)

Do NOT use your old cable that you “might have laying around”. That’s asking for a second disaster to happen. Be smart about this and go spend some money on a brand new length of cable with new end terminals and do it right, unless you want more problem or fires. Ground it to THE BLOCK, not to your alternator case

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

The First Law of Wiring:

Put the copper where the current is.

In the case of a car, the single highest current that ever flows, is the starter. The current leaves out of the + batt terminal, goes through the red cable, to the post on the starter solenoid, through the solenoid to the starter motor, through the motor, to the starter case, to the block, to the black batt cable, to the - batt terminal. Since that's where the current flows, that's where the copper needs to be. There's no good way to hook the - cable to the starter case, so the next best thing is the block; which the starter is THOROUGHLY connected to.

Then, to support the MUCH lower currents that flow in the chassis, hook something from the block or other engine casting to the chassis, equal to or greater than the factory's braid at the pass side head to the firewall; and equal to or greater than the factory's little pigtail (MUCH smaller than the main ground braid) at the fender right by the batt, which should be part of the new cable you're going to go buy at the store.

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Small ones on first, then the cable, then the nut... puts the stouter and thicker piece where the nut rubs against it, which can better handle that, rather than the thin ones. The extra couple of layers of the thinner terminals don't impact conductivity between the main cable and the stud.

Franco85Z

Alright here are a couple of pictures of what I've done. "Big" red cables are from the battery and alternator. Black wire is from the starter. Other smaller wires are to whatever else was connected to the old battery cables.

3rd is where I have the negative grounded. I'm going to make another ground cable and find a nice spot to put it on the engine block. I will be running a ground cable from the battery to engine like suggested. I'm also going to find every wire I've spliced into for power to any of my gauges or accessorys and just wire it to my separate fuse box.

1st picture is of this spaghetti monster I've had in my car for the past two years. I dont know what it does. Or of it even works. Im also gonna look at my starter relay. I really don't want another fire.

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sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Aftermarket alarm / remote start / stereo / godonlyknowswhat garbage. That whole blivet is ... a blivet. Monkey abortion. Abolish it.

Turf it all. Every box, every wire, every wire nut, ALL of it. it's not hard to differentiate between factory and aftermarket wire; if it's not factory, RIP IT OUT. If anything factory was cut, splice it back together with solder, NOT just a crimp splice; you can use a crimp splice of course, just solder it after cutting the insulation off of it and crimping it. I see a Wilwood something or other in there; no telling what that is; might be worth figuring that out before ripping it out, because it probably has something to do with your brakes.

The "other wires" on your binding post thing are THE ENTIRE REST OF THE CAR. They provide 12V to the ign sw, the headlight sw, the fusebox, etc. etc. etc. etc.

In line with the maxim of "put the copper where the current is", the cable to the batt and the one to the starter should be on the same post. You want AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE in the way of connections or parts in between those things. The starter draws up to 400 amps or so; the alt only puts out something in the neighborhood of 100. Put the copper where the current is.