[V8] Major Eletrical Problems

[dsaad at icehouse.net]

It sounds like Jason has a fresh cadaver to harvest parts from.
Sorry about that Jason.

Without any real BTDT knowledge here (on the V8 anyway), I will just opine that
the harness itself did not just up and fail. More likely something somewhere
overloaded and caused wires to melt - with the result being some wires melted
together. This is probably going to suck to get fixed. You are lookng at a ton
of labor. One thing to check is fuses - are they all the correct value - and not
jumpered out? It seems to me that most everything is fused in this car so a
failure like this is a little odd.
I would probably start with the high current feed wires to major systems like
the fuse box, headlights, chargeing system, etc. If you attempt the job
yourself, the trick is to isolate working systems from broken ones and try to
use the wiring diagrams to search out all harnesses that might be affected. When
things melt though you get lots of un-explainable current paths so the logical
solution might just be to remove the entire dash and then the entire harness.
That sounds like a big job but more than likely this is just how the car was
built at the factory. Back in my stereo installing days, I often found that the
fastest way to get a job done was to remove the entire dash instead of trying to
fight it while standing on my head.

Dave



Quoting Tdehoff at aol.com:

> At the last report, My 1990 V8 was at a garage due to a serious Electrical
> fire i.e. there was smoking and the smell of electrical components burning,
> various electrical circuits operating on there own etc.  The mechanic has
> indicated to me that so far he can determine that the car has
> grounded/shorted out
> somewhere within the wiring harnesses within the car, which one and where is
> yet
> unknown.  He is going to pull off the dash cap Friday and see what he can
> find
> there.
>
> I am beginning to think that I am going to have to sell the car to a salvage
> yard.  I would appreciate any input from anybody who has experience in
> dealing
> with salvage yards as to what my car would be worth.  It has zero body
> damage
> and the engine and transmission are in excellent condition.  In fact the
> only
> thing wrong with the car is the melted wiring harness somewhere in the car.
>
> Also is it even possible to replace the wiring harness if he could isolate
> where the problem is?
>
> Iowa Tom
> soon to be a former V8 owner :(
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