Grounds and electrical stuff.

[dripley]

How common is a catastrophic short to ground and an under hod fire?

[rotohead]

17 minutes ago, dripley said:

How common is a catastrophic short to ground and an under hod fire?

 

Statistical probability ends with me. If it can happen it will happen to me from my experience. Or close to that. For real.

 

Edit: I'm a paraplegic in a wheel chair from a less then 2 % chance something would fail. No regrets but many lessons learned. 

Edited November 14, 2018 by rotohead

[ofelas]

Picked up a Mopar branded Group 34 battery a few days back to replace the missus' 5yr old battery on her winter beater, as one cell was flaky, and desulfating the battery didn't help.

 

Pleasantly surprised; static voltage was 12.75v on the dealership counter, & it was cheaper than the WalMart/Costco equivalent.

 

The OEM 15yr old Denso alternator charged at approx 14.2v with all vehicle accessories on, showed an AC ripple of .035v at the battery (.033v at the alternator posts), so I took it out on a 30 minute highway drive.

 

State of charge the next morning was 12.95v

 

[ofelas]

On 11/13/2018 at 8:57 PM, dripley said:

How common is a catastrophic short to ground and an under hod fire?

 

Only seen it a couple times;  both on Jeeps that have been "modded with all the latest accessories" - winch, dual batteries, one wire alternators & some real questionable internet inspired power cabling.

 

My buddy's 93 W250 fell victim to it too; previous owner replaced the fusible link with a piece of spliced in straight 6ga, the very tired alternator's positive diodes shorted to ground, and the resulting under hood fire took out all AC wiring, the serp belt, the AC hoses, and part of the plastic fan shroud.

 

Fixed all the above stuff & did his KDP/case bolts/freeze plugs early this morning, just waiting on new AC hoses before I button it all up & weld up a front receiver so he can put a quick detach plastic blade on it to plow his driveway.

[rotohead]

I found this interesting. I purchased a battery cable kit from Geno's garage back this summer and just started installing it a couple weeks ago. Never did look at the install instructions until the other day and noticed the 'optional' battery cable. This was not in the kit from Geno's but it shows me this mod has been known  to others for awhile and it is proper to have some kind of protection/link in the system. I already have a fuse and holder purchased that I'm going to use otherwise I'd call this guy and get the optional cable, or at least inquire about it. BTW, the kit is very well made and might be a little pricey but I feel is worth the cost.

[snoogett]

Just wanted to mention that while doing this mod on my own truck I was having issues with the lights inside and outside dimming intermittently.. low and behold the auxiliary neg cable going to the block was more than half rotten inside the black wrap.. if the wrap wants to come of super easy it’s more than likely corroded on the inside my instincts told me to rip it off and look inside but my pocket book was saying no that’s 1guage copper but it really isn’t bad to replace