I just fried my positive wire in the middle of traffic.
Could I just replace the wire and reconnect it and drive off or could there be a bigger problem?

 

btw, its the positive wire that goes to the ground on the side of the driver side fire wall that toasted.

What wire guages should I be using? 8 or 12?

 

What does this mean?:
"the positive wire that goes to the ground on the side of the driver side fire wall "

You have positive 12volt wires and ground wires (negative).

A positive wire going to straight to ground will spark, arc, smoke and burn.

Take a picture to explain your problem.

John

 

that would be the ground (negative) if it attaches to the fire wall.

u would want at lease 6 guage(60 amps)

or 4 (80 amps)

when you start the car that wire will have to carry 100-200 amps

 

If it was toasted, mostly it's because it was lose and the viberation makes it moves around the connector and making alot of sparks and heat up.

 

Never hurts to have bigger grounds. Get as big as you want. It's only a few bucks more for bigger, so you might as well. You are better off to be on the safe side and have more than sufficient grounds than not enough grounds.

It sounds like a ground from what you describe. If the wire leads to any mount on the chassis, it's a ground. Grounds will burn up when it's insufficient.

 

same rules apply for grounds as do positives... you could use a 1/0 power wire and a 10 awg ground, and its the same as having both 10 awg power and ground, 12v makes a complete circuit, flowing electricity from the negative to the positive

use 2 awg for the starter, 6 awg to the under hood fuse block, reground battery with 2 awg to strut tower bolt, and then run a 4 awg to motor fromt he same point and you will have NO problems with power distrubition from those points

 

just re-run that wire and it should be OK. This has happend to me too!

I went and bought a big thick cable (2 gauge, I think.. maybe it was 0? I dunno.. its pretty big.).. I ran it straight to the engine block from the battery, and then I ran another (thinner, 6 or 8 gauge) from the battery to the car. I've also got some engine-car grounds. It seemed to work pretty well, it improved my high-rpm power a WHOLE lot, and it seemed to help driveablility too (before I was just runniing the battery cable to the body, NOTHING to the engine.. that didn't work so well.. lol)

 

Go to the welding store and get arc welding cable: thousands of strands of wire, high capacity and very flexible.

B

 

this is actualy a major problem as this usualy dosnt happen unless you have a on going dead short somewhere in your electrical system,. which will have to be tracked down and fixed...i supose your fussible links blew as well ,do you mean ignition circuit wiring, active wire , or in house fuse board wiring...that got fried..youd better check over your entire electrical system , proper connections and proper earthing...

 

yes sorry my bad!
it was the negative.
I checked for battery spark too. NOTHING. No SPARK.

I'm gonna re run the wire and take some pics. It looks mad *** whack the way the wiring was set up. Looks like the negative was connected to the ground and also to another wire leading to the starter.