stan 65 cutlass

melted a wire and damn near had a fire, when the wire melted it melted the plastic oil pressure line wrapped up in the loom. filled the intake manifold full of oil, noticed the huge cloud of smoke when i accelerated and the oil dumped on the hot exhaust. pulled the plug from the alt, and folded the good oil pressure line twice and taped it, made it home. the voltage reg is clicking when the bat cable is connected. alternator is/was new, where do i look?


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Run to Rund

Check for shorts, replace the regulator, and have the alternator checked carefully for bad diodes, shorts, worn brushes, etc. Re-do wiring as needed.

MDchanic

I can't recall my wiring colors right now, but I believe you burned up your field wire.
That shouldn't be possible with a good alternator - if the regulator is mistakenly sending full voltage to the field coil, it still shouldn't be enough to melt the wire, unless there was a short in the alternator.

Check everything, though, and slit the harness to be sure the hot wire didn't cause any other shorts.

Good luck!

- Eric

edit: I think I needed to be clearer -

This is NOT your main output wire, which means that your alternator was NOT putting out way too much current to the system, and therefore that the short is not likely to be in the rest of the car, but is likely to be in the charging system itself (although the heat could have caused another short somewhere else)

stan 65 cutlass

thanx, ill be all over it tonite

dmcianfa

Ouch, I did the same thing to my tractor this year. What a mess. Found a short in the charging system.

Run to Rund

As stated above, the burned wire is not output. The power output is the fat red wire with the rubber boot on it at the alternator.

Ranzan

Stan lucky you found it when you did......... just what we need is more pics of a burned up Olds. Let us know how it works out

stan 65 cutlass

fire extiguisher? tools?

442scotty

Time to buy new under hood wiring...M&H sells it...cheap insurance and piece of mind

stan 65 cutlass

so i pulled the old wiring out, it wasnt the feild wire but the R wire? only melted a foot and a half in but melted real bad there, too bad to see anything. checked my parts car and it had an original unmolested, unpainted, harness. will put it in tonite and start checkinq everything else. hey 442 scotty i googled M&H, what else is in their name?

svnt442

Here ya go. They make quality stuff.

http://www.wiringharness.com/

stan 65 cutlass

thanx for the link for wiring, awsome. okay new harness went in and everything worked for a minute, then the starter ran on when the key was turned on????? i guess with the hei that went in it didnt like the wires together at the coil location now,it had been separated on the old harness. now its all good just need to run a new line for the oil pressure