Not a good day today!
 

Let me preface this by saying that I'm the original owner of my 90 GXL with over 360k miles. So, I do my regular Sunday run to Whole Foods (about 1.5 mile drive) this afternoon for a beer and then to pickup a few groceries for the week. Driving home, about 4 or 5 blocks from the house, on a one-way side-street I come to a stop at a red light. There's a Volvo station wagon next to me in the right lane also waiting at the red light. I notice a faint smell resembling burning wires and then I see some light smoke coming from my right hand side. I thought it was the Volvo next to me. Light turns green and I take off, go one block to the next intersection at which the light is red. I then notice more smoke coming from under my hood. Holy shit!!! I glance at the gauges and notice that the voltage gauge is a little lower than normal showing just above 12 volts and the oil pressure gauge is steadily rising approaching maxing out. Suddenly the engine dies. Acting quickly, I shut the key off, pop the hatch, get a pair of pliers, pop the hood and disconnect the battery's negative cable. I then see a small flame at the wiring harness down near the oil pressure sending unit. I then close the hood hoping the fire will die off and after a minute or so the smoke subsides and the flame died. When I saw that things were going to shit, I quickly steered the car towards the left curb. I then pushed it back about 10 feet and parked it at the curb conveniently right in front of a parked tow truck. The windows were cracked open about 2" so I thought that I'd attempt to close them. I hooked up the ground cable and didn't see any more smoke. So, I get into the car and turn the key to the "on" position. The courtesy lights came on but the power windows didn't work. Tried starting the car but it was dead. It would neither crank nor did any of the idiot lights come on. So, I made arrangements with the tow truck driver, whose flatbed truck is parked behind me, to tow me home tomorrow morning. Too much excitement for a Sunday afternoon! It's funny, I put the car up on the rack Friday afternoon for a quick oil change and did my usual under body inspection, and didn't notice anything suspicious looking. I'm curious to see what had shorted out.

Not a good day by any means, but it sounds like you were incredibly lucky that it wasn't worse!

Absolutely! The car could have gone up in flames! The fuel line runs right near where the fire was burning. Next time, I'll be more prepared and carry a fire extinguisher with me. A fire extinguisher is probably something we should all have in these old cars.

Sorry to hear that, hope you have somewhere to work on it at, I hate doing electrical in old cars (or really any cars).

Ok...thanks! I work for US Army R&D Laboratory so I'll work on it at one of the local base's auto hobby shops. Looks like my next 2 to 3 weekends are already planned out. Problem is that the car is my daily driver and only car. So. I'll probably be shopping for a second car very soon.

I wish I had a hobby shop where I'm at. Just left Norfolk and I used the hobby shop a LOT when I was there. Now I'm hobbyshop-less and working with jackstands =[. Grab something like a 2000's civic for the MPG.

Sorry to hear that. I feel your pain! I'm old school. I want rear wheel drive and manual transmission. That eliminates 90+% of everything out there. I probably check out the Ford Mustang.

Don't forget 240sx. Check zilvia.net for the "for sale" forum. I own a house in VA Beach and there are routinely 240's for sale around there.

I would check the wiring and ensure that the shielding did not rub through in a spot on the harness in the suspect area. This would be my first thought honestly, that two wires were bare enough in a spot and were touching, causing a short. Easy enough to repair luckily. Also, are you on your original engine? We have many members here who have over 300k miles on their 84-85 GSL-SE and have not replaced an engine. Rare opportunity to talk with the original owner about their ownership experience over a near 30 year span.

I bought the car new in April 1991 at Brown's Mazda in Alexandria, VA.

I replaced the original engine at 211k miles in 2011 with a Mazda re-manufactured that I bought from Ray Crowe at Malloy. The original engine met an early demise due to a defective oil thermo pellet. I've now got about 150k miles on the replacement engine. The engine runs good...runs strong.

I was looking at a shop manual yesterday and it appears that there's a metal clamp down in that area that secures the wiring harness to the body. That clamp may have cut through the harness. Also, I vaguely recall once reading on this forum about a similar incident due to that clamp.

Oh man, glad you caught it quickly! Hopefully the charred wires will help locate the source, but the first place that I'd check is the giant battery cable running to the starter, since that is the only one in that area that I can think of that is un-fused - There is a lot of power running through various harnesses there, but most of it is fused and the fuse should have blown before a fire started. The battery->starter cable is also un-switched, so it is always hot, regardless of whether the key is on. It gets switched by the starter solenoid, which also engages the pinion gear in the flywheel teeth when starting the engine. Either way, check the fuses for anything that looks damaged, burnt or melted too.

Good luck!

Actually, sometime last Fall I bypassed the original battery cables and ran new separate positive and negative cables from the battery to the starter. I left the original battery cables intact in the harness but disconnected. Since you mentioned it, there is a wire in the harness (I believe it's a 12 gauge) that runs from the battery through the 100 amp fuse and then to the fuse block inside the car. That's probably the wire that shorted to ground and caused the fire. So, that's a good idea! I'll also need to check the main fuses and fuses inside the car.

Problem is its been raining here like cats and dogs for past few days. We've had over 4.5" rain last Saturday. They're forecasting another 1.5" rain tomorrow. Hopefully, the rain will by out of here by the weekend!

Will look forward to any updates. Its great to hear that you got 211k miles out of the original engine. If maintained properly, these engines do in fact last a long long time.

Will keep you posted on my progress. I did have it towed home last Monday morning. Planning on having towed into the shop either this weekend or next.

Will keep you posted. I'm planning on having it towed into the shop either this weekend or next.