Hey Guys,

I'm fairly new here and just wanted to give everyone a heads up on a mistake I made that could have cost me my car. I know, Im probably an idiot but my embarassment may help someone else out there with mental faulties like mine. I've been tracing down small problems in my 69 for about 2 months now and am having a blast. Car runs great, no major problems. I wanted to do the interior cool down using reflectix. I read several posts on the subject so off to Lowes I went. When I pulled the rear carpet, I found my cargo lamp dangling behind the carpet. Great! I figured bubba had removed it. I plastered 2 layers of reflectix throughout the car, reinstalled the carpet and attached the cargo lamp in place. I noticed it did not stay lit with the doors open and would come on intermittently. I just removed the bulb for the time being. I took the car out for a ride and was tickeled. The heat was down and so was the noise. I started her up yesterday to work on some vacuum issues and started smelling smoke! My rear wiring harness almost caught on fire. I unhooked the bat cable immediately and traced for fire. Best I can determine, the cargo lamp had an exposed wire which grounded on the reflectix and finally made enough contatct to short. Hope this helps someone. Look out for bare wires.

aw

 

Thanks for sharing that important info. Does not sound to me like you did anything wrong on your end. Just one of those things that happen. Don't kick yourself too hard.

I am doing a frame up rebuild on my 77, I will make sure that I check for this.

Grant

 

Looking to do the same to mine very soon, thanks for the heads up.

~ Kip

 

Thanks for the heads up. I read somewhere i the forum where someone else recommended putting a piece of rubber or vinyl around the shifter area for the same type of thing.

 

Odd, almost same thing happened to me, just painted my '72, put interior back in, and shoved the small screw into that damn under steering column cover, the one up on the column itself, not the two on the lower dash panel... damn if that screw didn't blow a fuse, finally someone said I had no brake lights, find out no t/signals either.....went ape trying to find out what happened, that damn screw.....needless to say it's now just a tie wrap hell with that ever again....burnt a wire finding it, so out came the dash panel to trace what/where....

 

Why didn't a fuse blow?.. why was there even power to the lamp? you have more problems than a bare wire.....

 

joewill, I keep asking myself the very same question.

 

Fuse won,t blow sometimes if its an intermittant short but will heat up as arcing occurs between the wire and ground.

 

I did exactly the same thing, must be a common mistake.

Gary

 

I cant answer the fuse not blowing, but on the power back there…..If memory serves me, there is power on those wires at all times. When you connect ground (i.e. Opening a door) or grounding to the frame it finishes the circuit. Hopefully someone else will chime in that knows for sure.