Victory and defeat… electrical.

[Geep]

Here is a start… I’ll need to scrape some melted tape off to get better colors, this poor thing is pretty beat/hacked up. I don’t KNOW if its a CA vehicle, but it does appear that its in the very last group of ‘02s made. I am in SC and it has been in state for 20 years or more as far as I can tell… but I suppose thats anecdotal and less factual. Any emission’s equipment appears to have been stripped. If there are telltale parts that might be left behind to tell me if its a CA vehicle I can look for them.

 

Pictures:

cardboard backed pic is the alternator group. Green circle connected to the starter solenoid. Blue circle to B+ on alt, yellow circle is a three wire plug to the alt… says these should lead to the regulator but I have not tracked that down yet. Red circle definitely looks like it should be plugged in somewhere but it was not plugged in when I got to it. 
 

pic with single red wire is part of the culprit. The (now bare) wire was crimped in with the wire you see. It ran from battery + to the B+ and was affixed to the outside of the alternator group. The red wire you see (still in fine shape) appears to run to the circled relay which I can best figure is maybe the fanfare relay?

 

Next pic is the same culprit wire (red circle) and the wire (green circle) that appears to run to the ignition switch. You can make out the large gauge red wire that runs to the starter just above the battery. Note the paltry green wire (by purple line) that grounds alternator. The blue circle is the alternator group Ive cut the sleeve from around.
 

last pic is just an overhead shot, to see whatever can be seen. Im trying not to be too forceful moving things around and everything seems so fragile.
 

dang thing runs and drives great but the body is a hopeless mess. Not really sure of my goal just yet, at the moment just learning and enjoying and trying not to dump a mint into ‘fixing it up’ before I have a solid grasp of what I have gotten myself into.
 

Cheers and thanks! 

[Geep]

11 hours ago, OldRoller said:

In the last picture there are two wires going to the alternator B+ terminal. What does that heavily burned wire supply? 

there should never be more than the single alt to battery wire on that terminal.

So nothing responds unless I have a wire directly from the battery to B+ on the alt. I may have misread what you’re saying… there is gauge (12 or 10ga best guess) wire attached to the B+ in the alternator wire group (shown in my later pic post). This wire goes into the harness and out into the ether far all I know (yet). The culprit roasted wire appeared to be 12ga, directly from the battery to the alternator. This wire was attached outside of the harness and alt wire group. The cause looks to be where the metal retaining clips cut through the insulation and it grounded there, resulting in the melt. Again, this particular wire looks to be added after the fact. Without this wire, wired direct from battery to B+, the car is a brick. When I touched a new wire here everything lit up and (appeared) to run an normal though I did not turn the engine over. 

[OldRoller]

Welcome to the mystery that is 02 wiring, Geep! The red circled ? wire in the first pic is the old temp sending unit connector, not used since you have a gauge now. Tape it up. The wire from right front looks to be for air conditioning stuff, Coil it up and secure it over there for now.  Starter to battery (that one is good). A 12 volt incandescent test light will help tremendously from here on.

Make a new wire at least 10 gauge to go from the alternator B+ terminal to battery positive. 

Make a new alternator ground wire 10 gauge any color except red and secure it to the alt body and engine block. Use full ring terminals on these connection properly sized for 10 gauge wire and the studs they connect to. Short wires, just make them long enough to allow engine movement on the alt to battery. Reconnect your alt plug. That's your basic engine/charging done.

Connect the alt wire and the heavy starter wire to the battery positive. No sparks? Smoke? Good.

 

Now you can dig into the wire that disappears and was likely the grounded wire that caused it all. 

Get the test light and connect the alligator clip to Battery Positive. You will be looking for grounds now. Touch the probe to battery negative to make sure the light works, then touch the body of the alternator, engine block, main grounds by the relay center (brown wires) and the body of the car (fender, etc). The light should light on all with same brightness.

 

Now you can touch the red wire that disappears into the harness. If the light comes on, you still have a grounded circuit. This wire feeds the fuse panel, ignition switch other circuits. If no light, wherever the short occurred has been removed. 

 

Now the fun part. You need to follow the burn section back as far as it is burned until you get to good unburned insulation. Very often a wire will melt into other wires and can create havoc with operation after initial short area has been corrected. Pull the harness out where you can get into it and carefully cut the wrap off and follow that wire. When you get to good solid insulation, use a butt connector and fasten a new section of same size wire (10 gauge) long enough to reach the battery + post. Look at all the wires next to the burned section and tape up any that look damaged. Check again with the test light for grounds. Put a ring terminal on the end of the new wire and connect it to battery positive stud. You now have 3 connections to B+.

With the test light (connected to battery NEGATIVE now) test for power at the fuse panel and alternator B+ connection. Turn ignition on and test fuse panel again for power. You should have dash L and oil light. Test light function, turn park, head. 

 

If all seems good, try the starter. Hopefully you'll hear the hum of your well tuned mill! 

 

Looking back, you don't have AC but are running an electric fan. Reconnect that red wire for your fan controller to the battery positive post. You should probably have a fused power distribution block for such items, but that is for another day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 2 by OldRoller

[Geep]

Thank you so much this is great info! Now to find an excuse to bail out of work lol

[Mike Self]

See my original "Couple of more "needs to know": post above, I added a few things after seeing the above pictures you posted--and BTW, I hope there's something more than the pictured green strap that's holding the radiator in place...

 

mike

 

 

[Geep]

19 minutes ago, Mike Self said:

-and BTW, I hope there's something more than the pictured green strap that's holding the radiator in place...

 

mike

 

 

Nope haha. But Ive made a bracket out of some aluminum angle that dry fits, just gota finish it up. As the new parent Im learning I need to take these one at a time or I start throwing things

 

geep

[Geep]

Thanks so much y’all. Ive got her mended and running strong. She looks very tired (rust, spray foam and black bedliner paint) but she sings sweet and handles beautifully. Its a whole ass project and more than I bargained for but I’ll enjoy the drive for a bit and try to figure out whats next. Your input was invaluable!