Almost toast times 2!

[Peer81]

Well, it was a nice and distructive eventing yesterday...

Got the carb back together after some changes and on the engine. Battery full and starting, hat to crank some time to fill the fuel bowl but then she fired up. In an attemped to get a steady idle rpm I played a little with the gaspedal. Then I noticed a little smoke comming from the vent selector, looking a the volt meter it was in the red area in the right corner! hnoes At the same time some smoke was coming from under the dash at the passender side and more smoke from the center console. So I shut down the engine as fast as I could, and disconnected the battery (lucky for me the battery terminal was not tight so I could get it off in a split second.

My first thought was nice burned alternator regulator so I didn't give it some thought first check the carb and everything. I walked to the engine to see I had a leaking throttle body gasket in the left front, fuel was dripping on my intake manifold... Lucky for me the engine was still very cold with only a few second of running time. Easy fix to change it with another gasket. Put the carb back on the engine and begun to inspect the damage the 18v system made.

All center gauges and lights aren't working anymore, headlight and cornering indicators do work. Engine wil not start, rear window defogger didn't work, cornering lights don't work and that is about it. We begon checking the fuses, all seems to be in place so no problem there. Only problem is my aftermarked alarm burned a 7.5A fuse and putting back in a new one it burns right again... Checking if there is 12v at the gauges fuse shows there is no 12v there. Then checked if the fuseable links near the starter are still in place. There is 12v coming from the links to the ignition switch. Looking in the shop manual in the wiring diagrams I could chase the problem back to one thing, it looks like IGN1 from the ignition switch doesn't work anymore.

So this evening it's head first under the dash again to get the ignition switch from the steering column. Yes you have a hobby or you don't...

Greetings Peter

 

[navy2kcoupe]

Man that sucks! I guess the only good thing to come out of it was that
you had the presence of mind to shut it down and get the battery
disconnected before it turned into a molten pile of fiberglass. Good luck
with finding and repairing the problem. Upside down under the dash is
NOT something I would look forward to at my age!
Andy

 

[Peer81]

Ah wel she is still in one piece so not a very big problem.
Today continued with the search, put 12v on the power wire to the distributor (as it didn't have 12v from the ignition switch). All the gauges and cluster lights began working like they shoot so no problem there. Took the ignition switch off the car and took a look inside. Some black burning signs around the starter solenoid contact so something did happen. Then looked if the 12v also reached the IGN1 contact... no 12v there. Looked again if BAT1 and BAT2 had 12v but that wasn't the problem. So the problem was somewhere between IGN1 and the starter. Connecting the dots with no 12v there and the fuse from the alarmsystem blowing before you could put it in gave us the idea to take a look at the clifford alarmsystem. I put it under the radio on the center console so that was also where the smoke was coming from the other day. Opend up the center console and my friend pointed to the proximity sensor with some molten plastic on top of it.
So that was bingo, disconnected the sensor and from the 3 pin connect only 2 were there, so that had been a big short circuit. Cut the cables from the sensor and put the fuse backin, the alarm was up and running and everything was working like it shoot.

So lucky for me one melted prox sensor and no other damage.

Greetings Peter

 

[bill81vette]

Peter,do you know what the sensor was?????

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

 

[Peer81]

The damage isn't that big It was the proximity sensor so easy fix.
I'm very happy a cheap proximity sensor melted and not some other $$ part inside the vette.

Greetings Peter