Almost lost my '58 Edsel yesterday...

Robin Banks ) wrote:
: Apparently they ran it too damned close to the exhaust manifold. Yesterday
: the rubber softened enough to short to ground, causing ALL the cables to burn.
: Battery to ground, battery to solenoid, the solenoid itself, and the solenoid
: to starter. Nothing left but bare wired, and a nice hole melted in my NEW
: damned 29N battery. The car stalled at an intersection, and a nice guy
: offered to push me around to a driveway, then we noticed smoke coming from
: under the hood.

Wow, a few years ago I had the exact same thing happen to me with my '64
Skylark convertible. I had a shop replace the starter solenoid (a trusted
place, had done a lot of work for me) and they rerouted the positive
battery cable too close to the x-man. Sitting at a red light the car died.
Took a few seconds for me to realize that (a) all electricals were dead
and (b) there was acrid white smoke coming from underhood. Jumped out,
popped the hood and was almost choked by the smoke and felt great heat. My
thought was "if you gotta burn, burn up completely!"

Thankfully like your case the damage was limited to the starting circuit,
and in my case, the battery too. Shop made good for the cost plus the tow.
But at the time it happened, what a scary moment!

--
Greg Beaulieu Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
Olds List Admin Info: http://oldslist.oldsgmail.com

wrote in message >. ..
> On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 02:50:25 GMT, Robin Banks
> > wrote:
>
> >On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 20:21:21 -0400, Nate Nagel > wrote:
> >
> >> leave only the negative terminal loose then.
> >
> >No worries. I found some grinding stones, so I should be able to grind the
> >inside of the cut-out I have, so that it'll fit on my pos terminal. That's
> >the ideal situation. I'd like to have that working anyway... it's almost
> >put-away time here. <sigh>
> >
> >Going to give that a go tomorrow, after the doctor appt. (replacing the one I
> >missed when the Edsel almost went buh-bye.) I'm taking the PU truck there
> >this time. <laugh>
> >
> I don't think I understand. Breaking either connection will shut down
> the electricity, so why not take the negative loose? That way you
> won't have to grind the connection. I'll bet that's why it's smaller.

Standard aircraft practice is to remove the negative cable first
if disconnecting or removing the battery. If the negative is being
removed, any contact between the wrench and ground won't create
sparks, and after the negative is off the body is ungrounded and you
can't get a spark if a tool accidentally shorts the positive to
ground.
So removing the negative removes all potential from the frame
and body, unlike removing the positive, and if that positive
post/clamp is close to grounded metal it might make contact in the
process of twisting it off. Not good.

Dan

Robin Banks > had
writtennews:aruqm05cvkuhhpfg5ft4dbf013shhof1gp@4ax .com:


>
> I complained over the price they charged for the estimate and the
> simple job of installing the starter-to-solenoid cable (which I
> couldn't do myself due to my back), and they just sorta shrugged.
>
> If they'd expressed some interest in salvaging me as a customer
> prior to this, perhaps I wouldn't spread the word. I feel they
> had their chance though, and they just don't care. (or are
> clueless... your choice.)

>
>
> ~~R.Banks
>

Surprising in that case that they stay in business. They say a sucker
is born every minute but not so in small communities. We had a
tractor dealer in town who went bankrupt. Surprising that all the
customers they kept cooling their heels didn't buy enough to keep
them in business. Unfortunatly they had parts that requires a length
search to find now.

--
Barney __________________________________________________ ________
"I'm not into name calling. That's best left to the Morons and
Idiots"