Near Disaster - Electrical
 

My wife and I were cruising around town yesterday when we (mostly me) were suddenly enveloped by an acrid cloud of smoke. By the time I pulled over to the side of the road the smoke had pretty much dissipated. I checked under the hood - all good. Checked the headers and there was no sign of anything that touched or burned there. Started it up and all gauges were normal, so we drove home. It was a bit of a head scratcher.

I just finished poking around in the driver's footwell and found the cover off one of the relays I installed in October - with a crack in it. Hmmm.... I could see the exposed relay just above and to the left of the clutch pivot, so I reached in there to feel around. When I pulled my hand out it was covered in slimy black goo. Definitely not good.

I pulled the access panels from the front of the footwell and took a look. ALL of the insulation was gone - melted off the wires from the relay sockets back to where I had connected them to the wiring harness. The relay missing its cover looks a bit bent. It appears I didn't secure them well enough and one of them slipped down and somehow got jammed by the clutch pedal or the actuating rod, crushing it and exposing the electrified bits inside which, of course, found ground and fried the wires. Based upon that it appears there is no fuse or breaker protecting that circuit - something I'll fix when I put it all back together. Again.

I don't know how close we were to starting a fire and losing the car, but I have to believe it wouldn't have taken much more. Yikes.

Need to: a) fix the wiring; and b) get and carry a good extinguisher.

Be careful out there.

Glad all is well, I am in the final wiring stages of my build and wiring scares me to death. I have read more in the last month then I have in my whole life I believe.