Dad was a carpenter, and I always had access to scrap wood as a kid, built a lot of tree forts and club houses. With wood you cane see what you are doing right up to the point that you have a finished product. I moved on to auto body stuff as a teen. I did have a Lionel train set growing up, two of them now that I think about it. Still have it all along with the big two handled controller. As you may have guessed it is fried, so a rebuild or replacement is needed before my Grandson gets it. Bob
I did see what I was doing the other night. Put wood in the stove and it was on fire in there. Nice and toasty. Took my 32 on the road legal for first time today, The butt end sat lower due to a passenger, and the tire rubbed through my taillight/brake wires inside one fender. The light housing is too close for the tire size. Cleaned the wires bare. We kept driving...no fire no smoke, it is all fused
Lesson learned back in 66 or so, put the 3 gage panel under dash and in my infinite wisdom and knowledge, put volt gauge wire through clutch rod hole. My first experience at a rewire job, what a mess, got it done, not pretty. Same type gage panel, different car, used small diameter copper tubing, broke at the oil pressure gauge, small mess, cleaning carpet to remove stink was the hard part. Funny, was rebuilding engines, (plastic gauge, beam torque wrench, engine books) carbs, swapping tranz, rear ends, that part I seem to get right, wiring and details bit me on occasion.
I have to disclose my outlook somewhat. I focus on big ol American cars from the 30s. All the connectors were solder joints, every new harness I buy is also solder/shrink joints. The original stuff had something akin to a small rubber hose instead of shrink tube. Also, the bigger the need the thicker that "hose" was. With exception to age and cracked insulation those systems were pretty robust and always held up well. I too will crimp some things, and I prefer quality tools and supplies to do the job well. Things that might see weather could benefit from a quality crimp and a really good seal on the crimp connection. I'm aware of solder boards and new crimp connections too but I have no use for such tech under the dash of an old Packard. Just sayin...
Yes. This also happened to me years ago. Found it before the garage burnt down. I installed battery cutoffs the very next day. Wires chafing, is the number one cause of car electrical fires. ..
Fires always scare me on a car. I don't wear a wedding ring also because I almost lost that finger a couple time working on a car.I carry a fire ext. and always have the battery cable lose enough so I can pull it off. I am going to in stall a kill switch after reading all of this on the 56 Chrysler Windsor. Thanks Bruce.
Working in Ford dealerships, I can't tell you how many Fords would come in with engine fires. The little short rubber line from the fuel line to the fuel filter in front of the carb would get a hole in it and spray gas on the coil. They would think it was electrical after the engine harness was melted , but it was actually started by the fuel leak. Word of warning. I just got a fuel filter from Advance Auto parts for a Torino .It had the short rubber hose in the box. I installed it and after running about a half hour I smelled gas. Turns out that hose was dry rotted from setting on the shelf for who knows how long. Check or replace the hose that comes in those fuel filter boxes. It may have been on the shelf for 10 days or 10 years. It could been a disaster. New motor, fresh paint job . 4 months work ruined by a 50 cent rubber hose hose.
Another way to think of voltage and current. If you start with a ramp representing the wire laying on a level floor with bricks representing the electrons. Think of voltage as the difference in height between one end of the ramp and the other. The bricks don't move with the ramp laying level. As one end of the ramp is raised (voltage increased), a point is reached where the bricks start to slide (current flows as the resistance of the wire is overcome). The higher the ramp is raised (higher voltage), the faster the bricks will move so more bricks per minute will move down the ramp (higher current). At some point, the bricks start moving so fast that the ramp can no longer handle the volume and the bricks start falling off the ramp which would be like the wire burning.
Just last night I was reading about the difficulty of understand electricity, the biggest problem is forgetting everything I was told in the past 66 years, most is untrue. Sorry but the bricks are now added to that list. Bob
There actually are electrons running through the wire. The number of electrons is measured with an ammeter. How hard they are being pushed measured by a volt meter. If the gauges are missing there will not be a problem as long as there is a wire to let the electrons to pass where the gauge was removed. Charlie Stephens
The only fire I've had was from using an amp gauge that had a shunt. A shunt allows most of the current to go thru the shunt and just a little to go thru the gauge. The shunt looks like an external ignition resistor. It was mounted in the engine compartment because it gets hot. All was well until the shunt/resistor broke. ALL the current went thru the amp meter and the small wires going to it. The small wires melted and some of the 12 gauge main supply wires got a little toasted. Smoke was filling the interior until I got to the battery in the trunk and disconnected it. We were near an exit and pushed the car to a gas station at the exit. The attendant let me use his power to run my soldering iron. It took a couple of hours to rewire the car and motor on. I installed a cheap amp meter that had all the power going thru it when we got home. A few years later I decided not to depend on th amp meter and switched to a volt meter. I feel a lot less stressed driving the car now without having to watch the bouncing amp needle! I installed a battery cutoff switch after the "fire" trip!
Actually, that's not true. Solder joints will start to fail at as low as 300 degrees. Early-on in my learning curve with powdercoating, I had the not-so-bright idea to use solder as 'filler' for minor imperfections and to 'blend/smooth' fabricated pieces. Imagine my dismay when the stuff just ran right off the part under 'flow-out' heat (about 425). Even with reducing the powder cure heat to it's bare minimum (about 350 degrees), it still wouldn't maintain it's shape and stay in place.
Never hard a fire. But being an electrical engineer I solider all connections, use proper wire size and correctly crimp end with shrink tubing for water tight connection. Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
A shunt normally uses a voltmeter to read the voltage drop across the shunt to determine current flow. It shouldn't draw any more current if the shunt fails. It shouldn't be any different than having a volt meter connected anywhere else. I suppose the gauge could short out internally or the wire short out. It should be fused right next to the shunt.
I use a battery disconnect switch or disconnect terminal on all my vintage cars. The wiring and electrical systems are in good shape on them, but I do not want to take a chance especially since they are parked in the adjoining garage at home. It just takes a minute or two to disconnect or reconnect the battery. I use the disconnects on the grounded side of the battery. JWL
I think a lot of the main causes are covered here; I'd venture that poor routing of wires where they can rub on metal surfaces and using too small of a gauge of wire are probably the 2 largest offenders
I had an amp meter pull a Chernobyl on me many moons ago. I was on the Sheriff's search and rescue 4x4 posy. During a training run, I was sent to the top of the ridge to run the radio repeater. No problem, I had dual batteries, so I lounged around up there tending the repeater and watching movement in the valley. When it was time to head back to base I fired up the old Jeepster only to fill the cabin with wire smoke! I neglected to account for the 100 amp alternator pumping through the older 60 amp gauge I was lucky, just melted the main feed wire. I bypassed that and made it out easy peasy. Last time I ever wired an amp gauge, Their all volt gauges now
It doesn't ever 'change' into anything else. Actually, these terms are just ways of describing the different aspects of the same thing. The 'basic' unit of measure for electrical phenomena is the 'coulumb' which defined as an object that has charged to 6.28 x 10 to the eighteenth power (or 6.28 billion billion extra electrons). Voltage describes how fast these electrons move past a given point; the higher the voltage, the higher the speed. Current describes how many move past this same point; again, the higher the number, the higher the current. One coulomb in one second equals one joule, which is the same as one volt at one amp.
I saw that someone used the term "coulumb" a few months ago, first time I'd ever seen the word in my 66 years. Thank you for adding "joule" to my electrical vocabulary, and making all this just a bit more difficult to comprehend, and impossible to understand. Wet sanding a hood tonight with 1500 grit, that I can see and totally understand. Bob
Nobody is great at everything. Here's a link to rumbleseats site, great advise on early Fords and Hot Rods, just click the electrical location. http://www.flatheadv8.org/rumblest/intro.htm
Half assed aftermarket audio install I'm lucky my daily driver didn't erupt in flames. After I bought it I noticed the audio was cutting out. I took out the aftermarket head unit, and the harness was cut off on both the factory end, and the headunit, and the wires were just twisted together, with some electric tape. Also he was running the amp for the subs straight off the battery, NO FUSE, down to the frame and spliced to another smaller wire with electric tape, and this was all zip tied to the fuel line going all the way to the back. He also had three wires running off the battery with 30amp fuses two of which went in through the firewall, and weren't connected to anything, and one ran to the trailer hitch for a brake.
just got the deuce running again generator was great last year but had it checked a ok had it out amp meter reading 15 to 30 turned car off in a half hour i smelled smoke coming from generator the points had stuck on regulator. filed points and not sticking amp meter reading 15 to 30 again till yesterday went for a ride and amp meter on 0 until i try light then it discharges to 15 is this right
it is not charging at all. if we knew what type/car model of that generator, then you can get info on how to test the generator still on the car to see if the generator itself is ok or not. some generators need a hot jumper to the F terminal to make them run wild with the regulator disconnected...but others like GM and Mopar need the F jumped to ground. .
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