Electrical fire

[nchittendon]

I have a problem, but I think it "should" be an easy-ish fix.

Stopped at a buddies' house to pick up some 50 gallon drums for waste oil.

Fire up the truck to leave, turn on my lights, and start backing down his fairly steep driveway. Not quite dark here yet, but getting there.

I roll about 15 feet and the horn goes off. Loud and proud!! The three guys were holding their ears. I was already on a down hill slope, so I didn't want to get out of the truck just in case the parking brake wouldn't hold.......they just stood there looking at me with their ears covered. That's when I noticed the smoke from under the hood.

No more time to wait for them to assist, I pulled the park brake, and in one motion shut the truck off, slid down and grabbed one of my tire chocks from the side box, and chocked the front wheel. Without missing a beat I popped both tabs on the hood, and mouth motioned to him to get a piece of wood. I was expecting a short, and I was expecting it to be hot.

I threw the hood open, and saw straight down on the driver side (right at the frame) where a main harness was on fire. Now please don't judge, I am somewhat smart when it comes to cars, but I've NEVER messed with anything like this. It wasn't until this point, I remembered the main light switch which should kill all the power......I hoped.

I jumped down, hit the switch, but the horn kept going. I then ran around to the front and unplugged the horns. As soon as the sound stopped, I yelled for water or fire extinguisher. My buddy was already coming back with one. I shot it out, and stopped to breathe.

In the picture the harness in question is the upper circle, the lower circle is where it rubbed through on the frame. I'm actually a little pissed right now because I never saw the break in the harness that I JUST saw when I drew circles on the picture.

Now I am a little concerned because.....how much of the harness is actually fried. And of course, now my wife is banning our son from riding in the truck at all. This sucks.

 

[porkysplace]

Do you have a 3 lever light switch or the push button switch?

 

[nchittendon]

3 lever

 

[peashooter]

I think I would carry a fire extinguisher with always in one of the trucks since there is just so much stuff that can burn and put a battery disconnect right by the batteries so you can shut off all power at the source whenever you need (I've done this on my truck, they are cheap too). That will at least give some piece of mind and reduce the chance of bigger issues. I'd inspect what you can on the harness but the only damage should be in the area where it wore through and caught fire.
I had something similar happen on a car where a reverse light bulb broke and the filament started some nearby weatherstripping on fire when I put it in reverse.

you can check out post 15 here for the cheap battery switch setup http://www.steelsoldiers.com/showth...Build-Thread&p=1376653&viewfull=1#post1376653

 

[porkysplace]

That rules out the push button starting it . Maybe there was a bad spot from rubbing something in that section of the harness . At this point you probably need to pull the harness and evaluate damge and most likely get a replacement harness.

Wiring diagrams ;
Peter Bog's CAD deuce schematic!


M35 Wire Number Chart

 

[Flyingvan911]

It might have had a crack in the wire insulation and grounded to the frame or another wire. Might have a broken wire and the gap caused an arc. Who knows on an old vehicle. Glad no one was hurt. If it was me I'd buy a new front wire harness. It's a bit of work but would be great for reducing the chance of more wire problems. If the front anyway.

 

[nchittendon]

Peashooter, got ya covered. In all my wisdom, and with the truck on the hill, I bailed and was trying to tackle one situation at a time and more things just kept popping up. Never grabbed the fire extinguisher. And my ears are still ringing from that horn. lol

 

[nchittendon]

Flyingvan911, I have until the 24th of this month to sort it out.....that's our first mud bogs and until then my son is banned from riding in the truck. That's gonna break his heart, so this WILL be fixed before then. Anyone have a quick drop on a front harness?

 

[nchittendon]

Another angle from a pic that I already had on hand.....

 

[clinto]

Flyingvan911, I have until the 24th of this month to sort it out.....that's our first mud bogs and until then my son is banned from riding in the truck. That's gonna break his heart, so this WILL be fixed before then. Anyone have a quick drop on a front harness?

All the harnesses you'll usually find on ebay are the wrong ones, they're for M35A1's which you can make work, but they're slightly different.

Erik's has the cheapest harness, I think they're currently $310. It's the entire front harness, cab and front end.

There are several threads here about the correct harnesses, part #'s, NSN's and which harness is which.

 

[nchittendon]

This is the image from my phone. This is the aftermath. The picture was taken from the driver side wheel well.

 

[whiskey357]

Ya go with a new harness...that one is SHOT....and while you are there check it all out .......old age catches up with everything........I know heheheh good thing no one hurt.....Fire ex is a good thing to have.......otherwise you might be walking to the mudding thing with the kid in tow....best of luck on this one...

 

[nchittendon]

Work on saturday, surgery on the truck on sunday. We'll see what the damage really is.

 

[silverstate55]

Welcome to the club! I've had 3 electrical fires on my Deuce. Two were started by the old wiring harness rubbing through & shorting out...I finally replaced it with a new one from Erik's. And of course the engine starter had to short out shortly after, burning up most of the new wiring harness on the passenger side below the turbo when the starter wires melted their insulation & caught fire.

Good luck, the fun is just beginning.

 

[nchittendon]

lol. Thanks. I used to have a 64 Impala SS that I restored. Anything with 40 year old wiring will be fun. I wish I had the room and equipment to do a full restoration on the deuce, but it's going to have to be a piece by piece project. Looks like I found my first piece! lol

 

[steelandcanvas]

I concur with the others, replace the harness. Don't toss the old one, it can be scavenged for repairs, add-ons etc. The Deuce TM has an excellent procedure for removing and replacing that front harness.

 

[nchittendon]

Since I have a hole in the driver side fender that needs to be fixed, I figured it would simplify things if I just removed it. What a pain in the butt. Broke most of the bolts. Going to replace with stainless ones. Found another harness that was in the process of rubbing through. And got to where my damaged one was more exposed. Thursday will be the next time we can knuckle down and dig in deeper. Now begins my work week.

 

[steelandcanvas]

Broke most of the bolts. Going to replace with stainless ones.

Save yourself some cash and just use some Never-Seize when you reassemble with cad plated hardware. Stainless is spendy!

 

[peashooter]

Save yourself some cash and just use some Never-Seize when you reassemble with cad plated hardware. Stainless is spendy!

I agree, or even if you use stainless you will probably break them too. Stainless galls really bad so when I use stainless bolts with stainless nuts I use anti-seize also just to help prevent the galling. I've put many stainless fasteners on my truck, sometimes I've needed to take them off right away to add a washer or something and had them gall up so bad that they broke trying to disassemble them. A bottle of Anti-seize is always within arms reach when I work on my truck these days

 

[steelandcanvas]

Stainless has it's applications, just not on a vehicle.