Acesanugal

iTrader: (5)

So the other day I'm driving to work, and all of the sudden my interior fills with smoke. Long story short, I pulled over and shut the car down, and tried to figure out where the problem was coming from.

Pulled the dash out last night and this is what I've figured out so far...

There's a wire that runs from the fuse panel (Under dash), up towards the hole in the firewall where the harness exits. The wire, so far as I can tell, was a thin black wire with a red stripe. There isn't much left of it... It is basically just overheated copper wire now, as the insulation has been completely burned off. This is bad, because it melted several other wires together throughout the harness as I can see.

I was using the FSM last night to try and figure out what that wire is for, to maybe give me some sort of indication as to why this happened. The car runs and drives fine, I just don't want to risk having my vehicle burn to the ground on the side of the road.

If this one wire turns out to be nothing important, I may just cut it out, and attempt to separate and wrap the affected wiring that isn't too badly damaged to protect it a bit, and call it a day. I'd prefer to not have to try and snake the wiring harness out of the car and blow it all apart.

So, who has an idea as to what this wire goes to?

satch

iTrader: (1)

Telling us what plug/connector the B/R wire ran to would be of help.

Acesanugal

iTrader: (5)

alright, so my car played a bit of a joke on me...

The wire in question is not B/R... it's Blue/red... It appeared to be black because it was charred, but I was just digging around and found more insulation that had simply melted to another wire. To verify this, I tried scraping away some of the black from what little insulation there is.

This wire comes off the bottom-most plug of the three that are attached to the side of the under-dash fuse panel.

As I said, I tried the wiring diagrams.. but I suck at them.

satch

iTrader: (1)

Look at the pic below and check if the plug w/the red arrow is the plug you speak of. If not then select the one which matches yours.

Zerkster

iTrader: (22)

same **** happened to me and my friend, and that harness is the worst harness by far to replace.

durtled

un related but that is a hot car zerker thats how i want mine to look when i rebuild it this winter its an 88 n/a getting a s5 tii engine from an impound that has to be destroyed. taking the tail lights also and the entire running gear.

satch

iTrader: (1)

I believe the plug you speak of is FR-02. Look at the pic supplied and verify whether this is it or not. If it is then check to see that you have battery voltage on the Blue/Red wire (L/R). After verifying that it has voltage w/no key then pull the 7.5 amp Room Fuse and verify if the voltage is no longer present.

Acesanugal

iTrader: (5)

Edit: Reading comprehension fail. Funny, since my scores in such have always been flawlessly maintained.

I plan on going down into the garage in a bit and cross-referencing the color codes of the posted FSM page with the ones in the harness plug that contains my burnt out wire.

I'm seriously hoping I can just cut out that shitty little wire, attempt to wrap the damaged wiring with electrical tape to prevent them from ******* with eachother, and be on my way. The car runs and drives fine, I just don't want her to burn. Then again, I also don't want to sit there and make an attempt at replacing the whole wiring harness. I'm at the end of my rope with this car, can you tell? I need to be able to get to work so I can make the money to buy my winter beater before the snow starts to fall...

satch

iTrader: (1)

The connector has two plugs where one is smaller than the other. The smaller one which is the more visible one when looking at the fuse box is the female side of the harness which makes it the rear part of the harness. Chances are the front part of the harness,larger of two plugs, is where the damage came from so you need to check for damage from that area. The rear part of the harness takes the Blue/Red wire towards the back where it supplies voltage to the cargo light, connected to the hatch strut, in the hatch area.

Acesanugal

iTrader: (5)

But my question then becomes, how would it have gotten superheated? I was driving at the time of this failure, and my hatch light was not on because the hatch was closed.. (And yes, the light itself works.. like everything else on my car)

I am 100% positive that the culprit wire runs from that third plug (Lowest one on the fuse block), up, and thru the firewall into the engine bay. Are you sure the same color code is not used for something else in that direction?

As I said, I plan on going and cross-referencing the page of the FSM you posted here (plug specific) to the plug I am talking about to see if it matches. I need to finish my beer first tho lol

Acesanugal

iTrader: (5)

Sat., if you'd like, you're welcome to call if you're up to troubleshooting this in real-time. -shrug- PM me for my number if interested.

satch

iTrader: (1)

The front part of the harness, larger of two plugs, supplies various lights in the car in addition to supplying voltage to the dash clock, Security alarm, radio and so on. The Room fuse supplies power to the Blue/Red wire as part of the front harness. This wire splits off in many directions but one of them goes to the front harness plug that is a part of FR-02 which is the bottom of three plugs located just to the left of the interior fuse box which sounds very much like the location you described. This plug houses an L/R wire which you said had been damaged. This rear harness plugs into the front harness which the rear plug is the plug that is most visible when looking to the left of the fuse box and this plug sends a L/R wire to the back as part of the rear harness to the cargo light. As stated before, the damage most likely came from the front part of the harness and was passed through the connector of the two plugs and damaged the rear part of the harness. From your description it sounds like the damaged wires which you spoke of were part of the rear harness.

Acesanugal

iTrader: (5)

Alright, so I just verified that you are correct about the plug in question - FR-02

My question still stands... why the hell did it burn to begin with?

I will have to wait until my neighbor gets home from work. He's an electrical engineer, so he's interested to see how this pans out... He's one of those guys though, that will give you the tools to do it, and some basic information, and see if you **** it up or not. Basically, he's not going to be a pal and actually assist me in making the repairs.

Is that harness one that can be removed and replaced without having to tear out the entire front harness from the inside of the car out thru the firewall? Or am I screwed for that?

satch

iTrader: (1)

One thing you need to clarify is if the damaged wires are part of the smaller of the two plugs. If you you were to crouch down under the dash and look at the bottom plug, FR-02, and remove the plug does this plug have the wires that are damaged or is it the larger plug that the rear harness plugs into that has the damaged wires?

Acesanugal

iTrader: (5)

The female side, the one attached to the fuse panel, is the one with the damaged wire. The male side of the harness that plugs INTO FR-02 has no damage to the very same wire on it's end. The damage starts at the female plug (again, attached to the fuse panel), and travels up.

satch

iTrader: (1)

Actually, the female plug is the smaller of the two plugs (female slides into the male plug) and the male is the larger of the two. I'm going to list the items powered by the L/R wire and you tell me which ones you have. Security alarm, radio, ignition illumination light, door key illumination light, lights located in the door panel (red/white in color), dash clock. I know you have the lights located by the overhead rearview mirror. Also, is it true that you removed the dash? If so then you need to follow the damaged L/R wire from the fuse box to locate any additional damage which should be made easier with the dash removed. If this wire grounded out against anything metal it could cause your problem.

Acesanugal

iTrader: (5)

I fail to see the logic in the first part of your post, but okay. One would think that the receiving plug would be the female, for obvious reasons lol

Regardless... as I previously stated, the side of the harness affected by the melted wire is the side that is attached to the fuse box.

I did in fact remove the dash. I already traced what I could find of the L/R wire in the dash harness.. I cannot find any damage. Also, the harness that plugs into the fuse panel, also previously stated, appears to have no damage to the L/R wire so far as I can find.

Alarm, no longer. Radio is not powered by L/R wire... we used a 12v constant instead (Radio can be used with power off). Ignition illumination, yes. Lock cylinder illumination, no. Door panel courtesy lights, yes. Dash clock, yes. It's been flickering on and off, but retains it's memory. I resoldered it once, but the problem came back. Likely because I just re-heated the old solder joints, rather than doing a proper job.

satch

iTrader: (1)

If you look at the beginning of the wiring diagram where it explains many things one of things described is the larger of the two plugs is the male. I understand your point since the guy slides into the gal but the categorizing of which is which is based on the male species being the larger of the two.

The White/Red wire that feeds into the fuse box provides power to the Room fuse which then powers the L/R wire. I would check to see if there is any apparent damage to this wire as a clue to what the initial cause was. It's a pain in the rear but you need look at the L/R wire that used to connect to the alarm and see if it is properly taped off. Same thing goes with the L/R wire that led to the radio at one point. The L/R wire that goes to the ignition illumination I would think travels very closely to the steering column and also needs to be tracked/traced down as well and the same goes for the other things powered by the L/R wire.

Acesanugal

iTrader: (5)

The alarm was disconnected at the plug, and was not cut. The dash harness however is another story. The part of the harness that comes down into the radio bay was cut when I swapped the dash into this car from another, because apparently some time in the car's life, that part of the harness got toasty and the whole shebang started to smoke. Identifying the problem essentially on the fly, I grabbed scissors and cut the wires close to where they exit the dash harness. It was a clean cut, and none of those wires (what's left of them) are melted or burned, or have any indication of corrosion.

I've looked everywhere I can find an L/R wire, and nothing is harmed. As I've said several times now.. the only problem I can find is the L/R wire where it exits the plug on the fuse panel and travels upward towards the grommet in the firewall. Past that, I can't see ****. I'm not even entirely sure how to remove the ****** to inspect the rest of it. To be honest, the wiring in this car is a bit of a mess in places. I.E. no longer wrapped, etc. Previous owners can be a bitch sometimes.

THe white/red wire looks to be fine, btw.

Ignition illumination L/R wire looks fine as well.

I think it's safe to say that the damage is limited to where I can see it. The same cannot be said for where it travels up with the rest of the harness, however. I can't see past that, obviously.

Thoughts?

Acesanugal

iTrader: (5)

Everyone is out of ideas?

Acesanugal

iTrader: (5)

Update:

Apparently, when that wire leaves FR-02, it goes up towards the grommet in the firewall, but kinks back and runs along the harness that sits behind the dash, and is attached to the firewall.

After manhandling that harness some, I've found that the wire is melted even further up than originally though... from what I have found thus far, the damaged wire extends as far as above the steering column.

So what does this one wire do exactly? There are so many other L/R wires that I've found (Undamaged, mind you), I'm assuming this one feeds all of those power?

satch

iTrader: (1)

Besides the items previously mentioned the L/R wire powers the ignition key reminder (found alongside the steering column), ECU pin 3J, and warning buzzer in CPU. If you want to prove whether a L/R wire you come across is the wire powered by the Room fuse all that is necessary is to ***** the wire with a pin and take a voltage reading. Since the Room fuse provides constant voltage there should be battery voltage necessary. If there is, then pull the Room fuse and the voltage will disappear and you know then that the wire is tied to the L/R wire that you have damage on.