Hi,
Any help will be appreciated. A 12 awg red wire was burned with my headers. I tried to repair with butt connector and heat shrink. Now the car does not do anything when the key is inserted and turned on. I am assuming my repair was not done correctly. Before I re-start, I would like to get some advice in how repair properly or any techniques
that might be better or more effective than I did.

Thanks in advanced!

 

Where was the wire located ? On the starter lug ? Does your fuse box have power ?

 

You can see my unprofessional repair. The harness is close to spark plug number 2. It includes one wire that goes to the alternator and another that goes to the fan temp sensor, among many others. Not sure if the fuse has electricity but when i turn the key nothing turn on. I can turn on headlights and light by the brake pedal.

 

If it’s the larger wire that goes from the alternator to the starter lug it could have been running on the battery for awhile. Have you checked battery voltage and any clicking sound when you try to crank.

 

Battery voltage was 12.56 today and no clicking on cranking. As I track the red wire does not seem to go to the alternator.

 

It's likely that when the conductor contacted the header, either a fuse or a fusible link blew. You'll need to check those components. It would also be a good idea to open the harness a bit more and make sure no other conductors in the area were damaged.

Butt connectors are a mixed bag; some are OK if you use the correct tool to crimp them, some are not so good. FWIW; I solder and then use heat-shrink when repairing wires. YMMV.

 

I don't like butt connectors for this reason, but you can try a pull test on it to see if the wires fall out with a tug. But like the user above said, it most likely grounded out an popped a fuse.

 

I will check this evening and will get back to the group to close the loop.

All your help is much appreciated!

 

I had a fried wire, I got another harness, you can remove the wire from the plug w/ tiny screwdriver, it was easy to replace just 1 wire.

 

Fusible link/s and or fuses. Thats what i would check. A continuity test is another i would also check.
Harlingen Tx, born and raised there myself.

 

^^^ This ^^^

They're at the starter, at the end of the Big Red Wires that bring power to the entire rest of the car besides the starter and alternator. They're intended to protect you against EXACTLY what just happened: without one, you might well have set your car on fire and burned it to the ground; and sure, it SUCKS that the car is now disabled, butt it could have been SO MUCH worse. There are 2 main ones in most of our cars (and acoupla smaller ones in some of them). Each powers about half of the whole car. The car's load is approximately equally split between them. Think of them as being like the main breaker in your house's breaker box, except that instead of one main, there are 2. The loads controlled by the ign sw are divided between them, by way of the ign sw having 2 sections, each fed from one of the FLs. You might find that the Acc circuit still has power (blower motor or radio for example), but Start does not; or some similar pattern. Various other things - headlights, power accessories such as seats and windows, interior lights, and so on - are fed from one or the other, and will also not work if theirs is blown. Needless to say, if the one that powers the part of the ign sw that includes the Solenoid terminal has blown, then there will be no power there no matter what.

 

Great info, thanks!

I checked this evening. The fuel pump fuse was burned, so I replaced and nothing happened.

I will do a continuity check to make sure connection is working. (84 1LE- Love Harlingen! I just moved down here 3 years ago. Should come down a visit!!)

sound like it might be fusible links. Just to clarify, both fusible links are at the end of big red wire at the starter? Or one is as the starter and the other one somewhere else?

thanks again…

 

I've been thinking of moving back when I retire. Left there in 83 and still have cousins and uncles that live there.

 

Yes, both at the starter. Electrically, the far end of the red batt cable is the same thing as the + batt terminal itself, for most purposes, so that's where the car hooks up to the batt. The FLs are right there at the very beginning of the feeds into the car.

 

I am back. So found fusible links at the starter 3 of them. They seem fried by the headers. See picture. Can you buy fusible links? Wire measures 3mm in diameter. I was trying to see the size of the wires but difficult to read.

 

They look pretty fried, especially the two lower ones. Oreillys/autozone sell them. Just get the correct rating.

 

Finally, got around and fixed the 3 fusible links. Protect them from the heat. Car is back running , but temp gauge needle bounced around rapidly for 20-30 secs and now is stuck at the top of the gauge. Is that related to the repair or something to deal with?

 

Unplug the green wire to temp sender on drivers side head. See if the gauge goes and stays on cold .

 

Hello,
unplugged the green wire and stayed high up hot but came to find out. Wire is fried too.

Do you know any wire protectors that actually protect from heat? All the ones I have used melt, just been around the headers.

 

Wire completely disconnected = temp gauge goes to full cold

Wire shorted to ground = temp gauge goes to full hot

Sounds like your temp gauge wire is shorted to ground somewhere. Perhaps the insulation is melted off and the copper is touching something.

There IS NO heat insulation that will stand up to header heat. Sooner or later, if the extra insulation you add that way is fully exposed to all that heat, it will reach some VERY high temp, and whatever is inside of it, will melt, same as always. Correct strategy for dealing with this is 3 pronged: (1) use stainless steel headers, since the heat conductivity of stainless is less than half that of mild steel; (2) get them ceramic coated, since that reduces the heat conductivity by roughly another half or maybe more, such that the combo of SS and coating leeeeeeeks about a quarter as much heat, or less, into the engine room; and (3) get a handle on routing everything so that it's secured away from the headers. All of that "wrap" type stuff is just a band-aid. The ONLY WAY it can work is if there's cool air circulating between it and whatever it's "protecting". Which is why sheet metal heat shields are so effective: even though lots of heat can still pass through them, air blowing under them keeps the shielded items cool.

 

As always, very helpful information Sofa.

If the coolant fan switch goes bad, would the gage shows hot also?

 

No. 2 totally separate circuits.

 

Hi again,
so where would be the best way to track the short? Start from the temp gage or from the green wire at the coolant fan sensor?

 

I'd start at the end of the green wire closest to the site of potential suspected damage. Which would be, where the wire passes the headers, near the temp gauge sending unit, in the driver's side head.

No need to mess with anything related to the fan switch (pass side head) to fix the gauge.

 

Got it, I will do so.