So, I've been finalizing wiring on my recently acquired 914. I had all the wiring except the license plate lights hooked up. I got my license plates last week and was checking the lighting last night. I could smell something and I saw a whisp of smoke coming from the three wires that go to the engine compartment light. I immediately pulled the battery positive cable off. I could feel the heat on the cable shield going to the engine compartment light. I could feel some minor heat going back through the bundle of wiring to the rear tail lights and ultimately to the license plate lights. Is there a particular place in this that others have experience this wiring short? I guess I need to remove the protective sheathing from the bundle to make sure wires didn't get melted together along the heat path. I was disappointed to see that the fuse feeding those wires did not blow, It just started melting the plastic fuse body? It was an 8 Amp fuse and I'll have to look at my printout to see what position it was in. Approximately a middle fuse in the fuse block.
Any ideas?
thanks,
James

Check where the wires go through the body, might have a wire with damaged insulation grounding on the body.
Good luck, electrical troubleshooting can be challenging.

Jeff

I had this happen when I reversed the + and - to the interior light. I had to open the harness and replace a burned section of the ground wire. two of the other wires were damaged also but repairable. Good luck.

That's a common area for shorts. Check the small loom that feeds the backup lights. It's exposed and suffers a lot of abuse.

Did you get the license plate lights hooked up correctly? If you reversed them its a direct short to ground.

Yup, it's easy to get the wires to the LP lights switched. It's not obvious that one of the terminals gets grounded, but it does. Through one of the mounting screws, to the bumper pad frame, to the bumper, to the chassis.

--DD

Same thing here, just last night I replaced my 74 rear lic. lights, both arched-sparked when i went to screw in. so I just have the wrong female ends on the wrong male terminal?

Found this out when we back-dated my rear bumper and switched on the lights to test.

You should also buy the porcelain fuses instead of the plastic type. They don't melt.

Yep! That's exactly what happened. Silly me to think that the license plate lights were isolated from ground! It didn't damage any other wires in the harness that I could determine and license plate light now works. Well, one of them. the other one is burned out.

I'm having problems determining why the fuel tank sending unit won't work.
j