These are the remote terminals. As you can see they're on the firewall. Where am I going with that starter wire into the fuse panel?
Check each wire to ground means to put your meter lead on one end of the wire (it doesn't matter which end, but both ends should be disconnected) and the other lead to a known ground point. If you have continuity, there's your shorted wire.
Ok, that tells you what circuit to check. Most likely there is a direct short in that circuit ,maybe a screw that was screwed into a main feed wire. Or a “hot” wire that was confused as a ground and bolted to the frame. Something of this nature along the “ ignition hot” circuit. It should not be an individual circuit, as they should just blow their respective fuse. But I will underline the word “ should” ! It could be the fuse bar internally shorted also, if it is a “ignition hot” fuse bar. Remove it from its mounting and any ground , then turn your ignition on and see if your problem disappears! You have to be a “ electronic detective “ sometimes to find these things, but it’s there somewhere! Also look for loose connections, loose connections can act kinda like a welder, arcing and causing tremendous heat when current is applied. Bones
Thanks for the response, Boneyard. I've got another buss bar coming and one I get it, I plan on having someone who's a lot more adept at wiring than I am come and look at it and hopefully find out where my issue is. While I'm proud to have pretty much done this whole 1st project myself, I'm not too proud to ask for help when I know that my brain and electricity just don't click. Especially when frying the buss bar costs me about $40. I don't want to keep buying those trying to figure this out on my own.
Great, but since you are getting another buss bar, remove the one you put on and inspect it for a ground! Look at the bar, does the whole bar look heated! Or does , just part of it look hot. The heat will go from the electrical input to the short! This could pinpoint your problem. If you bar is not the problem, the exact same thing could happen to your new bar! Send close up detailed pictures, please. Close enough to read a date on a coin. Lol Bones
You're dead wrong. Having spent decades in the electrical industry I can tell you that there's plenty of documented testing been done by UL Lab to show the wire is going to hold that current longer than a thin copper buss will! A simple #14 awg wire will melt in half at 1200 amps! The buss bar shown wont hold half that, and from the wiring systems I've installed in various cars that buss isn't any different than you'll see on AAW, EZ, Painless, etc.
You're just proving my point. I also have 'decades' in the electrical industry and I can count the number of breaker/fuse panel buss failures I've seen on the fingers of one hand. And in all but one case, it was a connection failure; a loose connection that burned away at the point of contact. This one burned away between connections, not a connection failure but a capacity failure. It should also be noted that this buss is brass, not copper. Brass is less than 30% as conductive as copper (and half of aluminum) and has a lower melting point. If the buss had been copper, I doubt very much you would have seen this. To approximate the capacity of copper, it should have been 3X thicker than what it is. I'll grant that if the installation had been done right this problem probably wouldn't have surfaced, but this is a graphic illustration of how some of the aftermarket cuts corners. The buss should have at least the current-carrying capacity of the largest connected wire. And I wouldn't attempt a repair either; solder starts to liquefy at as little as 400 degrees. Replace only... And the one case I saw that wasn't connection failure? To be honest, we weren't sure what started it but what happened was an arc got started and ionized the air. This allowed the arc suppression between busses to fail (this was a 3-phase panel) and all three phases shorted to each other. A 2000 amp 480V panel, there was no main breaker (installed under the 'six throws of a hand' rule) so the unfused buss arced until enough melted to clear the short, which was after most of it had melted down into a pool of aluminum. The panel was a total loss and the fact that it didn't burn down the building is still a mystery to me.
May not be the only thing wrong but I'm still of the opinion your ignition switch plugs are screwed up. I checked a GM tilt column today in a 41 Ford pickup I'm reinstalling the harness in, it matched the diagram from Summit fordflambe posted exactly. I'll repost the version I corrected so the plugs are oriented properly. I checked the 2 terminals at upper right (no wires shown in this illustration) and they do connect to ground when cranking. I have never seen these positions used in any aftermarket harness I've installed. These were used in the original application to ground the idiot light wires to show that they functioned while cranking. You have a wire in one of those positions which I believe is wrong. You need to see if that wire goes to the fuse panel, if it's connected to "battery" it needs to be in the red wire position in black plug. I also looked at the instructions for your harness and think the illustration shown for this ignition switch is wrong.
Around 76 I found you could use the no tilt switch on a tilt column. Just had to turn the plug a different direction. Found this on the factory assembly line.
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