The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay My First Electrical "Fire"

Welll, it finally happened. I was heading out in my 58 Suburban with my son to pick up a lawn tractor yesterday. I plugged my GPS into the aftermarket cig lighter/power outlet I had installed. There was a spark and a cloud of smoke from under the dash. I quick shut the truck off, popped the hood and yanked the battery cable.

Investigation showed that the power outlet somehow shorted to the dash and overloaded the wire. Evidently I insatlled the ligther with no fuse. I disconnected the lighter and cut out the offending wire. Although it was smoked, the wire actually remained intact with no exposed wires. After a good check of everything else, I fired the truck back up and proceeded on a 50 mile road trip with no issues.

Two very important lessons learned:

1. Put a fuse on everything you install in your truck. I still can't believe I made that stupid/rookie mistake.

2. I need to get a fire extinguisher for my truck. I would hate to have to stand by and watch my truck go up in flames becuase I couldn't extinguish a small fire before it grew out of control.

I still can't believe I didn't put a fuse on that wire!!!!!!!

Might want to consider adding a battery disconnect switch. You did the right thing getting the battery cable off but many times its so hot you can get it off. Glad to hear things didn't go way bad for you.
Don

I have my 53 in the garage. Until I get to the wiring, I DC the battery, the original wiring and hack jobs over the last sixty years is a fire waiting to happen. I actually found wire nuts under the dash used to splice the heater motor wiring.

Don;

That is a good idea. I've been toying with getting a new wiring harness and replacing the whole thing. Might need to bump that back up on the priority list

Same thing happened to me while parked in my '51 Chevy 2-door with the future Mrs. Wally in 1962. I yanked the wire off the cigarette lighter and burned my finger. It was glowing red hot at the lighter. I guess the original equipment wasn't fused either.

Yeah, I don't think lighters were fused. It would take a heck of a fuse. If you actually use the cig. lighter, thats just a dead ground until it pops out.

The cigarette lighter uses a 20A fuse and 14 GA wire on the new harness I'm using (12V).

All;

Great info for if I decide to install another one prior to a new wiring harness.

X2 on the battery disconnect switch. Several years ago my bride and I were returning home in the wee hours and came upon a nice 40ish street rod on fire. I had my extinguisher and put the fire out 2 or 3 times before the extinguisher was drained. Each time the fire reignited because he had a dead short and the battery cable was way too hot to remove it. Nothing to do but watch it burn to the ground. That convinced me and I installed a disconnect solenoid like a ford starter solenoid in the battery feed to the harness. Whenever the ignition switch was turned off, everything in the car went dead. It worked for me.

I have a heavy duty disconnect that gets switched off when the truck is left over night. In extended storage, the cables come off the battery.