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What is 1 and what is 2? I have two black with yellow stripe 12 gauge wires coming thru the firewall. One goes to the blower motor and the other to “1” in the photo. Thanks.
#1 is the starter solenoid
#2 is the voltage regulator
Something bad happened to melt all those wires.....I'd be looking for a new wiring harness and disconnect all wire "hackery" before connecting a new battery, VR and solenoid to that truck.
Tbruz
Hey Custom,,
That wiring is a mess...
What did the main wire going to the starter look like?
I notice the wire is off and hard to tell where the others go with that picture.
Like previously said, wiring harness would be a great step forward.
What does the alternator wires look like?
Did the smoke start while you were cranking the starter by any chance? Or did it happen after the engine was up and running?
Or, did it just happen randomly?
I could be wrong, but that looks like a whole lot more wires than should normally be in that area on a 78. Or any other year for that matter!
Is there any chance that that other burned bundle was attached to the right side of the starter relay/solenoid, with the other end going down to the starter? As if someone used a multi conductor jacketed cable as a starter cable, rather than the standard heavy gauge stranded cable.
And is there any indication of where that smaller bundle goes from the lower left part of your picture? The one with all the bare strands, going into a jacketed area.
My guess is that’s at least part of your “ground zero” for the fire.
It doesn’t look like it was effected so much by external heat, as much as it was the source of the internal heat and, all the smoke.
Similar to what happens when you try to crank the starter on heavily undersized wires. Or in other words, either too much load or a dead short-circuit on that harness.
X1000 what they said, and do NOT power that thing up until you clean up that melted mess and figure out what caused it. You are not far from this happening.
Ok maybe not really, but I bet it got your attention. You need to carefully figure out what caused that. Most of the time a fuse in the fuse box will blow or Fusible Link (just down stream of the starter solenoid) should of prevented that. Look for anything direct 12V wired with NO fuse. Aux lights, stereo amp, some stuff like that. And again sorry to the yellow truck owner.
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