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Strange electrical problem

O

OldSkool Member

New CEG'er
Joined
Jan 16, 2001
Messages
20
Location
Winnipeg MB Canada
So I swapped in a different transmission over the last while, and yesterday I finally got it all back together and working again, drove it up and down the block a couple times, and then decided it was time to take it on the highway to make sure everything was good. Well I start driving and no more than 5 min from my place the whole car dies, so I pull over and try to start, it cranks but absolutely no spark. SOOO I open the hood and check the fuses, only to find that the ECU fuse is burned out, I think hmm, that's an easy fix. Well nobody in town sells those stupid huge fuses when it's 11 at night on a saturday. So I decide that I just want to drive the car home, so I find some metal object to jam in-between the 2 prongs just to get the car home ( i know this was a bad idea, I was desperate to get the car home at this point). I crank again and all of a sudden I see smoke rolling over the engine bay, I stop immediately at this point (though I have to say I was tempted to just keep going and start the thing on fire just to watch it burn). So now I have to figure out where on earth a wire got pinched or shorted when I put the transmission back in and put the motor back into place.

Sorry for the long rant, but has anybody had any experience with this? I'd like to have an idea as to where to look for this problem.

Also, when I put the subframe back up, I had to recouple the steering in the car, and now my wheel is horribly crooked (upside down in fact), is there a way to change that without dropping the entire rack again? There must be a way to take the steering wheel off and reposition it.
 
Last edited:
Nah. He just installed the intermdiate shaft onto the rack input shaft 180 out.

That's the least of his worries right now.

He has to find the shorted wiring first.

Steve
 
Yeah, I'm going to look at the wiring today, and speaking of that, I just remembered one thing. There's the large ground wire coming from the battery, where does that go to? Does it go the alternator or the transmission? As well i think that's where my pinched wire may be, I'm wondering if possibly when I put the airbox back in, I may have pinched the large power wire, and it's grounding out on the chassis.

As far as the steering wheel i'll look at that once I get the car going.
 
OldSkool Member said:
Yeah, I'm going to look at the wiring today, and speaking of that, I just remembered one thing. There's the large ground wire coming from the battery, where does that go to? ...
Click to expand...
I think that is the one which goes under the battery to the fender and usually comes loose.
 
The problem shouldn't be too hard to find. If you blew that main fuse, you definitely have something grounded incorrectly, and it is probably an 8 or 4 guage wire. The positive cable from the battery should run to the starter and then to the large fuse and then to the alternator. The ground wire from the battery should run to the transmission. There is also a small wire about 14 gauge that should run from the transmission to the chassis.

Good luck, hopefully nothing was damaged by using a piece of metal in place of the fuse.

P.S. I have several times wanted to watch my contour burn too.
 
Well I found the problem.

It looks like what happened, is in the process of putting it all back together, the thermal covering over the tube going to the EGR valve slid down, thus causing the IAC loom to touch the EGR tube, getting hot, then melting the shield off of both wires, causing a short, that's how the ECM fuse went to begin with. At this point when I shoved something into the fuse, and started cranking, the short caused the main power wire going from the battery to the starter, and from there got warm, and again melted plastic on the EGR tube causing that to short out as well. Luckily I don't think I fried anything besides wires.

The negative is now I need to re-run the wire for the IAC all the way from the main loom to the IAC, as well as tape up the main wire from the starter to the alternator, and wrap it in some sort of thermal wrap.

I already have the intake manifold off, and just need to run the wires now. I can't wait to just have this car finished.
 
I now also found out that fixing the crooked steering wheel should be relatively easy, it is also simply on a spline, so I just have to unbolt it and put it back in place straight.
 
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