Fire in the hole

[rtaylor]

Not quite, but something alarming happened yesterday. Yesterday was a beautiful day, so I deceided to push my car out of the garage into the driveway so I could have some natural sunlight to work on it. I was pulling the carbs so I could send them up to Bruce Palmer. Anyway, I had to turn the switch to unlock the steering wheel. I forgot to turn the switch off. I pulled the carbs and linkage. About 30 minutes later, I noticed an acidic smell coming from the interior. I stuck my head in, found the switch on, turned it off. No smoke however. I grabbed the fuse cover, yanked it off and put my hand on the fuse block. HOT HOT HOT.

After it cooled off, I turned the engine over briefly to ensure it was geeting power, radio works, lights work, wipers work, fan works. Here's the dumb question, should I be worried? I have done no electrical work to this car absent replacing the fusible link, BTW it was not hot. Should I pull the fuse block and start checking wires?

[Arne]

If you could smell it, something got too hot. I'd definitely check the underside of the fusebox for damage.

[bjhines]

Hmmmmm..... There are several dozen unsoldered(crimped) connections in the S-30 Z-cars... The fuse panel gets hot because it is assembled with rivets that pin the wires and bussbars to the back of the fuse holders... these can get loose due to improper fuse removal techniques and corrosion...

High resistance at these contact points causes the panel to get very hot before the fuse rating is approched or exceeded...

Here is a good way to fix that issue forever...

^^^^

I have heated both sides of the fuse block parts and soldered all of the connections... This was not an easy task.. and it required a huge soldering iron on one side with a smaller conventional soldering iron on the other side.. I cleaned everything carefully and used electrical paste flux and rosin core solder to ensure good connections...

This is a shot of a ground splice that overheated and browned several high current wires...

There are dozens of these dry splices that should be soldered to make the electrical system more reliable...

...

[rtaylor]

That's what I thought Arne. Now that the carbs are off to ZTherapy, I have some time before they come back. I'll pull the fuse block this weekend.

And thanks for the pictures John. That was a nice fix for a problem prone piecs of hardware. I just may follow your lead.

[hls30.com]

That is pretty much what I have done to all of my harnesses.

A good cleaning with deoxit(connections)/409(Insulation) followed by the application of silver solder, and a rewrap-resistance issues are futile!

Will

[bjhines]

90/10 silver/tin solder takes too much heat... you will burn everything up before you get it done... 60/40 lead/tin is the proper bullet for the gun...

[rtaylor]

That's what I'll pick up this weekend, along with another soldering iron to do the job properly.