needed to replace my alternator in my 81, it had the bearing fail last time I ran the car and I had never gotten around to changing it. Since the nicer weather is upon us and I really want to finish this POS and drive it this year, I decided to change it and run the new motor for a bit to check for any leaks or issues. Had the battery out and charging, 100%, installed the alternator, replaced the battery with nice new bolts and clean connections and start the engine. Step outside to look around the motor and get a whif of hot melting wire vinyl and then notice smoke coming out of the speedometer cable hole whose grommet needs to be replaced because it's cracked and torn. Immediately run to the drivers side, shut down the engine and flip the seat forward, and luckily, because I just installed it, had all the tools laying on the carpet to quickly disconnect the battery.
Have not dug into it deeper but my guess is the in and out of the fuse box and harness stress from the body off and on pinched or cracked something somewhere, I probably should not have tried to save a few bucks by reusing the 39 year old harness. At least I was able to catch it before any fires were started unlike a Cali style VW that I have.

 

OR... it was a good weekend because "I was able to catch it before any fires were started "?

 

Pos?

 

Hang in there Suprkoop!
We've all been there! Be glad you were in your own garage and not needing a tow home! Many times many of us were very frustrated with our rides! Good times are coming too!

Scott

 

Piece of s..t

 

just a word to the wise double check all your grounds too. Glad you caught it be fore it did too much damage.

 

You probably know to run a ground wire (or two, to be safe) from the dash to the birdcage/frame. It's rare but a poor/missing dash ground wire can cause the speedometer cable to act as a ground which will get very hot.

 

thanks Tony, I put all new and a couple extra on when I put the body back on the frame. The speedo cable was fine it was in a nest of wires by the pedal cluster and the open hole was like a chimney letting out the smoke.

 

i can see that. it is the only ground path. now, it should be plenty ground path for dash lights, gas gauge, stuff like that. it could practically crank the engine. something hot is hooked to ground for it to smoke. ammeter wire? starter circuit, interlock switch? clutch switch? lighter?

 

When you think about all that voltage & amps right behind your *** and how hard it is to disconnect the battery, especially in a hurry, maybe in the future you would want a "cut-off" switch. No, not the green **** on the battery post. Especially when the battery is burning but rather a automotive rotary On/Off switch. (They are seen on trunk lids of race cars)

I don't know how many rear compartments you have, but on mine I have three. My positive cable exits the batt compartment and enters the middle compartment. Off to the side in there, is a H.D. kill switch that can handle lots of amps. Its fastened to the partition between compartments. Then from that switch / compartment the positive cable travels forward of course.

That hidden switch comes in handy when doing electrical work, winter storage and I won't get into its vehicle theft qualities.

 

I did the same with a good on/off switch(probably same as heads up) but I cut out a piece of Masonite that conforms to the middle partition to make it nice and rigid as the oem partition is rather flimsy.

 

I have plenty of those cut off switches at work, you can even take out the "key" as an additional level of security.

 

One of these will be way faster - and less damage than the time taken getting to a cut-off switch-

Battery Fuse-

 

I like the looks of that, but I have the side-posts.

In the rare event of a battery fire, it takes me 0.003 seconds to flip a kill-switch in the next compartment over. The switch I have, has no key. Simple On/Off.
If you have ever seen a battery explosion you will see why a kill switch should be remote. What a mess.

 

What's wrong with the green ground disconect ? I use mine all the time.
And please, don't call your baby a POS. Cars have karma too.

 

True,, but that fuse will shut power off even when your in house sleeping, saving you that extra 0.003 of a sec to disconnect it,,,

 

EXACTLY....




WOW .003 is impressive- Doug Kalitta's has only 0.0609 reaction time...

There are several different ways to accommodate side posts-

 

https://www.ebay.com/p/3025821661?ii...IaAvFMEALw_wcB

 

I turn my cutoff switch off every time the key goes to off.....just in case the battery decides it wants to drain itself, that way Im not stranded

 

I am sticking with the old school type switch as i have some electrical drains that kept killing battery's, use these on all the toys, from Napa.