I know this is not a truck issue, but I'm sure that some of ya'll could help steer me in the right direction to helping out a friend.

A friend of mine has a 66 mustang with a 302, clean engine bay, alot of rewiring, looks clean. He had a problem with not getting power to anything at all, not even the radio, so I said I would help him.

I pull out a voltmeter and find out the batter is completely dead, D E A D. So, we go get a new one, and I pull all the connections and clean all the grounds, put POS wire on the batter terminal, and it started pouring rain. Like an idiot, I continued with the battery install. I put the ground wire and it sparked a little (like many batteries do), and about 15 seconds later white smoke started billowing and wires started catching fire!

When it all cleared, all of the wires between the alternator and the alternator regulator had burned. Well, most had burned, it seemed to stop about halfway to the regulator (wires run over the radiator support to the drivers side where the regulator is mounted on the fender).

He said he had had this happen a few times, the last time it happed it was the exact same wires, and it was due to him installing a new starter relay wrong, and a mechanic re-wired it and it had been fine since. He said that the last time he put a batter in (post re-wire), it didnt spark and burn wires.

There were no fuse links wired in, FWIW.

Also, could the voltage regulator have anything do to with this? After examination, the plug was halfway off, and the connections are corroded and green.

Any help would be great, I feel I have an obligation now to help him out as I feel this could be greatly my fault.

 

Bump

Anyone?

 

I would start with a wiring diagram and see if that wiring job was done correctly to begin with...

 

Lucky for your Friend.. Mustang parts are cheap to buy could buy all the wiring new and install. It sounds like maybe a wire grounded out some where .

 

Unfortunately, none of us can remotely diagnose a problem like this. If the wiring smoked like that, it's because there's a dead short to ground somewhere, and the wiring pulled too much current. You'll have to trace it from the start and find where.

This is why fusible links should never be left out of an automotive electrical system.

 

I agree completely.. NEVER leave out fusible links, they are there for a reason. Water over the bridge now, however... I agree you have a short pulling a boatload of current... I wouldn't expect the voltage reg. as the culprit, though..

 

Thank yall very much, Im going to look at it wednesday. It burned to a point, and stopped, so where it stopped may be grounded out? Will it stop burning to where its shorted to the frame or something?

 

I would have the alternator and regulator bench tested.

Josh

 

Did he have a heavy duty wire as a body ground strap? It goes from the engine
block to the body on the firewall. It would affect the radio and anything mounted on
the body.
DUNNO Just asking!