Summary: Need to redo part of my electrical harness. Delphi vent system is in the way and I dont know how to take it apart or if I need to remove it to access the harness. Any ideas?

Update: Rewired and completely fixed. I also was able to heat up the crash bar and remove it. Shoutout again to @Edwin21 ! He’s an electrical Jedi Master and helped bring me out of this nightmareish electrical fire. If you are having trouble with any electrical on your Vette here in SoCal or anywhere he’s your guy! Here are a few snippets of the fix. https://youtu.be/ZKd6IEqy4rE

Vehicle: 2005 C6 Base Automatic (No-Shame)

The Full Story: A few months back I made the mistake of cheaping out on the 20A fuses for both cigarette lighters in my C6. Fast forward to last week when I decided to plug a laptop charger adapter into the 12v receptacle in front of the cup holder. At first I heard a little buzz, but then it disappeared and my laptop began to charge. All was fine until I began driving down the road an began to smell smoke. Immediately I began to see it coming from the 12V receptacle area so I took out the adapter, but the smoke continued to grow. I quickly pulled over but by the time I got to the curb the smoke was beginning to billow. I cut the engine off and the smoke continued to grow. As this happened I began to scramble for something to disconnect the battery as it being a really bad short. I ran to the trunk and fortunately found something to disconnect the negative terminal. Once removed the billow began to die down and my baby being a spectacle on the side of the road stopped attracting the eyes of the mini-van dads. (Nothing against mini-van dads, but they always stare.) When I opened the footwell to see the 12V fuse location I noticed the plastic on the fuse box and the yellow plastic fuse tab were melted to hell, but the fuse itself appeared to have never blow. I cut the fuse using wire cutters and pried both remaining tabs out the best I could (they were melted into the plastic pretty bad). I was able to get the car to start again with no smoke but immediately I noticed that the fuel door popped open and the driver window would not go up. I pulled the other 12v because it was the same fuse style and the 30A accessory fuse. I also noticed the e-brake light was on (even though it was down) and the traction control light kept flickering. Then I realized I couldnt shift into gear to limp the car home. I ended up taking off the center console and manually engaging the interlock solenoid so I could shift it into gear and drove home. While in there I noticed the harness was cooked from the 12v to under the Delphi into the dash. (From there I couldnt see how bad it was)










My Idea: I figured I would need to take off the dash to access the harness and see how bad the damage to the harness was, then cut and rewire damaged sections. From there I can pull up the fuse box, if the damage was isolated, run a new stinger to one of the un-populated areas and choose a new home for the 12v receptacle fuse.

Current Issue: So last night I took off the entire dash. Followed the method provided by TCFLAME (You are a god send. link below). I thought once the dash was off I would be able to have access to the full cooked section of the harness, but the Delphi A/C vent system is on top of it. How bad is it to take this off? Are there any instructions on it? Do I need to take it off to get the access I want? Any help is truly appreciated.

You Tube

Update: What in the flying of all f....s. So I don’t know who from GM thought it to be a good idea to use cement glue but I wish he took a long walk off a short bridge. I finally got the bar off.

Unfortunately now the bars cupped base plate and HVAC unit only have a narrow gap. The harness is in an enclosure and doesn’t seem to fit through that gap. I’ll revisit it in the morning but will probably cut the plastic enclosure tube and finally begin to repair the harness.

Im probably 10-12 hours deep into this. The first 4-5 hours were smooth sailing in charred waters but the past 6 in the unknown regions have been horrid to say the least. Fortunately I am beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel. (Let’s hope this isn’t like when Ahab saw those whales in the Indian Ocean. It was all fun until the big white one spoiled all the fun.)

How did this happen? Did you have more than a twenty amp fuse for the cigarrette lighter?

Watching your progress.

Just a cheap fuse. That’s all. I plugged in a 12v adapter to charge my laptop into the socket and the fuse never blew. It shorted and the wire cooked from the cigarette lighter to the fuse box and the ground wire cooked to its tie point on the chassis frame.

Update. So I spent a month out of the country and am back working on the Vette. After about 2 days of splicing I was able to repair/replace all of the burnt wire(s). I also got everything prettied up. Before cementing the crash bar down to the tunnel I wanted to check to make sure everything was fine. All known issues appeared to be resolved but.... now the car won’t start. (No crank/No Start) the dash reads “Service Vehicle Soon”. The full gauge cluster cycles as usual but no start. I connected all seemingly important components. The only items left unplugged are AC Controls, Radio, a few AC connectors and Cigarette Lighters. Anyone know what it could be? I tried to jump the battery and still no help. (Dash reads 12.6 volts)

Update: Dear sweet baby Jesus...all 8lbs and 9 ounces. Thank you. The Vette is back in action all that’s left is reattaching the crash bar and bolting everything back on. I will also get some heat wrap fro the harness to make sure it doesn’t get too hot in the future.

Issues resolved:
1. So the car wouldn’t start after the rewiring and I noticed after trying to manually disengage the lockout solenoid on the shifter that the shifter felt loose. I checked the shifter cable and bam, it wasn’t connected and the tranny was in drive. I popped it back in and shifted to park and the car fired up fine.
2. My dash still read service vehicle soon and I couldn’t shift into drive still with the engine on. Also I wasn’t getting brake lights. Hazards worked fine. I checked the footwell fuse box and found the 10amp fuse for the Shifter solenoid/ Brake Sensor blew and swapped it out. Problem solved.

Huge thanks to @Edwin21 !!! You’re the real MVP. Truly an expert on all things electrical! If anyone needs any electrical help reach out to him! I searched all around Southern California for someone who really knew the ins and outs of Corvette wiring and he was one of few people around to have the answers. I tried all of the shops around too and everyone swears electrical wiring is devil magic or something and wouldn’t touch it. Edwin got me through an electrical nightmare and I’m forever grateful. Thanks for bringing Superman back to life!!

I also vouch for Edwin. Best of the best!