The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Very Hot cable to ignition switch

Hello, I have a 1942 chevrolet truck, and recently i had the voltage regulator repaired( it's a special one) from leece neville company, and the truck was chargin fine i bought a new battery the same kind as previous from napa 6 volt, and now the wire or cable its silver going from the ignition switch to the top ignition post on the voltage regulator is scaulding hot. it even melted a plastic zip tie that was holding a bunch of other wires together. does anyone have any idea why?

if you have any wire that hot you have a large current draw,or very bad connections,don,t know much about the chg system on your truck but retrace what you have done as something willnot live long ...doc

or a short.

Mike,

As doc41 pointed out, excess current flowing through the wire will heat it. You mentioned that this 'wire' is silver...a strange color for a wire. Is it an copper, insulated wire.

Wires are rated for ampacity. Big ones will carry more current than small ones. If a wire is undersized for its application, it will heat up, and can actually melt the insulation off.

If this wire feeds the ignition switch, I wonder if it now is toast. It has a maximum rating too.

Was the key left on by accident...I think it has a different OFF position than most folks would be used to. If the flow of power was from that terminal on the regulator, through the wire and ignition switch, I wonder where it was headed?

Unless it was a 'short', then power was flowing because a switch was closed and a device was using the power.

If a key is left on, the ignition system will use power. This can cook a coil and burn out points. Will the engine still start. Good luck and keep digging.

Stuart

If the ONLY thing you changed was the battery between working properly and not, then either the battery is in backwards or the wire was overheating before the battery change, without your knowledge.

well, the engine still runs and the thing still charges. but, we have other things that run off the ignition switch. this stuff was all wired previously and worked great, the unit also has a 6 volt to 12 volt booster(somewhere) to run old motorola radios, im going to try running the vehicle without the radios on, as this may be the problem. as far as the key being left on accidentally, i doubt it, and the battery is in correctly. i will do some more troubleshooting and get back.

if there's too much stuff runnin off that wire, it may need to be a heavier gauge wire, heavier than one might use on similar 12V applications

Bill

I tried it again today, the results were so far so good. the engine ran for a good 10-12 minutes(i dont like the -degree windchill here in buffalo) i have a laser heat sensor and it didnt go any higher than 70 degrees. that is about the temperature of the garage the truck was stored in.

Mike,

What did you turn off..electrically speaking. Why is that wire not cooking anymore. You need to see cause and effect to help troubleshoot this problem.

Stuart

from this point, im not exactly sure what i turned off. i have only a few radios that run off the ignition, and the gauges(which obviously are not the issue). i have not changed any wiring before i started working on the faulty charging system, everything is the same. my radios run off a 6 to 12 volt booster, but its only a 3 amp draw. my attention mainly focuses on a old motorola radio, which may be going on the fritz. for todays trial, that was turned off. thanks for your help.