I decided to install my hangman fuse panel. after installing i started the car, turn on
the head lights - works
flashers- works
turn signals- works
decided to turn on the wipers works, then the engine cuts off followed by a spark on the fuse area. within seconds the wires was on fire. I safely put out the fire.

I then removed the fuse box, to notice that the big red wire was burning, that wire was attached to a brown piece that looks like a breaker. it cracks ast it burns out.

My question is what is that brown peice is used for that has the brown wires attached on one side and the big red one on the other end.. I know that the brown wires are ground.

now that peice is gone what do I do..?
A good portion of the red wire is melted. and I will be inspecting the rest of the wires for burnt.


help!

I'm guessing it's one of the relays but it's hard to tell without pictures ...

its not a relay, it is screwed on top of the speaker on the chasis anhd the big red battery wire is attached to it. a set of atleast 5 brown wires are also attached the othe end of it.

I can't even take a picture, its burned .

That does not sound stock ...

it looks stock. what is the red + wire comming from the battery connected to on a 70?

will try to take a picture shortly

It sounds like they are describing the group of brown ground wires bolted to the chassis just to the left of the fuse block.

correct, then the red wire is attached on top of it.

it sounds like the ground wires from the door switch but there aren't 5 of them in thar location IIRC. maybe the ground wire group from the courtesy light area was rerouted back that way for some reason. ??

I dont think a big red wire is supposed to be grounded. Something isnt right with that. Definently not stock. You need to trace that wire.

Correction!

I went back to look, it is actualy where about 3 to 4 thick red wire are joinned togetter. one to the battery, one to the fuse box and I am not sure where the other 1 or 2 goes. the brown peice that melted is probably a piece that isolates them from the metal.

the wire shown on picture # 2 was attached to the pointing arrow on pic # 1.

Thats the stock positive (+) front feeding point that has been melted. Yes it is fed by a red wire from the battery and the voltage is dstributed from this point to the fuse panel etc.
Ive just assembled this on my -72 and it looks the same (but not melted).
I can see two reasons for overheating and melting this "bakelite" sort of terminal: a bad connection (at heavy load, main lights on etc) or a short to ground (-).

/lars s

T think it was reason # 2, . i guest I can just pickup a junktion box from the local FLAPS and replace the wire.

The bakelite thing seems to be available at Autoatlanta part no 928 612 867 00, appearantly it fits several Porsche types.


/Lars S

thanks ... is there some special function to it, or just a junction box that I can use any box with the prpoer strengh?

No special function other than a good electrical insulator with good mechanical strength. The shape however is a bit special to fit in that tiny space...


/Lars S

thamks

I didn't see anyone mention this, so I thought I would. You said you just installed the fuse panel upgrade? Maybe one of the wires got caught between ground and the fuse panel during reinstallation? Check the red wires for marks to see if one has a dent in it where the insulation has been crushed. This would have taken your + to ground and that is unfused at that point. Hope everything turns out OK. I put the J-West one in my 76 and the fog light flasher at the same time. It seemed to be too tight when I pushed the fuse panel back up, so I made a couple of spacers to lower the fuse panel a 1/4 inch so I didn't have too much pressure on the wires. Just needed slightly longer screws after that to hold the panel up. It has been fine for 3-4 years.
Tom

for what it is worth my '70 has the same "power" block above the drivers speaker. I dont really like having the wires exposed like that as it would not take much to short it out.
Sorry to see the mess that you've got. Maybe you can coat the wires with liquid electrical tape instead of trying to replace everything.

IMHO this is not good advice. you need to chase the wire to see how far back the damage goes, and you need to replace the wires. This may take longer, but you will get two things out of it.

1) if you incorrectly wired the fuse panel and that contributed to the short, you will find it more easily if you are chasing and isolating the damaged wire.

2) You want to replace the wire that was damaged. 30+ year old wire can get brittle anyway, why take a further gamble and reuse the damaged stock.

This is just how I would go about it, and it would take longer to do. You may be able to go about it the other way and be perfectly fine. I am a worrier, so I replace.

Zach

zach, you are probably right about not using the liquid tape.

I see some serious melting on a couple brown wires there as well. Go through everything you did, too long of a screw somewhere, bending a wire that broke insulation, etc. . Did the bake light piece break while moving stuff around, then short out.. Lots of possibilities there.

Sorry to hear this all happened after upgrading your panel. This is one of the joys of working with 40 year old wires

Hopefully you will get this sorted out and make it all better

Aha!

That is in fact stock and only found on early cars. The block is a insulator ...

I am almost sure that a Long screw caused it.
the rest of the harness don't look too bad.I went and got a 4 gauge wire to replace the urned one and I wil I have two othe short wire thr are damadge but they are easy to repair. For safety I got myself a 60 amp fuse that I will put right by the battery. I have all the parts and planing to work on it tomorrow.

You mentioned the brake switch box. Is there an other one other thn the one by the pedal?l

I agree with Zach's recommendation to check everything out- or else you could do it again, even with a 60 amp fuse. You can check each circuit for an unwanted ground by using an ohmmeter or a simple continuity check light. Do this before you hook the individual wires up, and you can isolate any problems before letting more smoke out. JoeO

the addition of a fusable link at the battery would likely have prevented this fire and damage. think about a fuseable link for next time.

Update! the batery wire is fried all the way to the battery. I spent 6 Hours removing the wire and inspecting every single wire that was on that batch, There was some other sligtly damadge wire that would probably cause an issue if grounded. I did the repair from the battery to the fuse box. I used a distribution box mounted under the dash nest to the fuse box. The battery wire coming in and the other 3 wires that was attached to the original wire coming out. I also added the 60 amp fuse box by the battery.. There are two other positive battery wire going to the relay box by the driver's side of the engine, I used a one 30 amps fuses for eacch.

I also confirmed that it was a long screw that that I used to crew the new fuse panel that touched the wire on the isolator... DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU!

Thanks all for all your concerns and help as always..

Paul

Success!!
I replaced all the damadged wires, added the fuses and the distribution box, tested all lights and gauges, everything works. the car started fine..



Thanks to all of you for your help and concers.

ppetion, glad to see your car is fixed.

Members, 1 quick question, what the heck is a "bake lite" ??? Is that another way of saying fusible link ?

IIRC bake-lite is that plastic like material that alot of electrical components are made of. Again, IIRC wall sockets and light switches used to be (or possibly still are) made of Bake-lite.


I could be wrong?

its not a fuesable link, its a small hard platoc peice they use wnd attching the positive wires togetter. it makes it possible to mount the wire junction to the chasis without grounding it.. its more like junction point.

Bakelite was one of the earlier plastics. It was invented by a guy named Bakeland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakelite

--DD

"bakelite" is a hard material that can be formed into all sorts of complex shapes. It apparently was the first synthetic plastic but uses bio components. It was used in fuze components for munitions and is not electrically conductive. It has a really long service life. Russians have been using it for what seems like forever.

Ah, bakelite!

Bakelite is really the first popular plastic developed over a hundred years ago by a Belgian chemist by the name of Baekeland. It's actually pretty easy and cheap to develop the ingredients, but its a bit of a chore for mass production in today's terms. Still, it was (and is) used widely for is thermal and electrical insulating qualities, its particular sheen, and its light weight. It has the look and feel of porcelain but its much lighter. It reached the height of its popularity in the 1940s-1950s, and many items like radios and jewelry are still highly collectible. It's still widely used today although other easier-to-manufacture plastics have mostly replaced it for consumer goods. It's mostly used for industrial purposes. The downside to Bakelite is that its brittle, and sometimes you want that and sometimes you don't. The 914 has numerous small Bakelite bits if you look around.

Bakelite!

I was the one introducing the word "bakelite" in this tread (sorry did not find a better word in english...).
However, Im not 100% sure that this piece is real bakelite isn't it more like thick circuit board material with fibres in it?
To me real bakelite is wery similar to the distributor cap material.

/Lars S

I think that it is exatly the same material as the distributor cap.

Dude! You work fast!
Doing all that wiring would have taken me at least a month, if not all winter. Congrats on getting it put back together so fast.

Zach

Thanks, took me about 8 hours, I am pretty good with electrical.