Melted Wire and Damage?

[Kerry Cordy]

Hey guys, Yesterday I made the most sickening mistake of my life. I don't know how I did it but I hooked up the wires on the start battery backwords.

I turned the main switch on, walked around the motor and started to trim the motor up and smoke was coming out of the cowl. I turned the main switch off and my first reaction was that the trim switch was the problem.

Then I sadly looked at the new start battery I just installed and realized my horrific mistake. The smoke actually came from the large red wire that comes off alternator and runs through the factory harness, over the top of the block and is connected to the brown starter relay I believe.

I hope that I did not burn up the computer and other parts.

This is on my new 2005 280 SS. How bad do you think this could be?

Thanks for your help and advice, Allen

 

[bassracr]

Sounds like you basically hooked your hot straight to ground and the smallest wire in the path started smokin the insulation off . It wouldn't surprise me if you have no damage . Switch your cables back,Make sure you have no exposed wires and try it again .

 

[SLOmofo]

Depends on if the components are reverse current protected. I specialize on Toyota products. 99% of the time when this happens all it takes is replacing fuse-able links and fuses, you just got to find them all.
On other makes of automobiles all sorts of modules and ECU's get fried.
Unfortunately the large charging circuit wire wasn't protected with a fuse-able link. It could be that the insulation is still fine, but it could be compromised somewhere unseen within the wire loom. Ticking time bomb. Cut it open and repair as necessary. 3M makes a nice self bonding tape. You can get fuse-able link wire at Napa or other parts houses. A rule of thumb for fuses is twice the amperage of the normal circuit usage.
The safest way is to cut it open and inspect from one end to the other. With out connecting the alternator touch the positive cable to the post to see how much of a spark is produced, I'd use an AMP meter between the post and cable. With everything OFF there shouldn't be any or maybe 250 Milli amps of flow. In cars there is memory usage all the time for like clocks and radio channels. Attach a circuit breaker or piece of fuse-able link wire at the connection to the alternator then touch it again. I'd expect the diode bridge in the alternator to be fried.
But, I've been wrong before and will be again!

 

[Jr in Jax]

I just did the same thing with my Battery Tender charger that was supposed to be reverse polarity protected. So far the tab is up to $2600.00 in damage.
1 battery
6 injectors [fried]
1 Brucatto ACU
2 rectifiers
wiring harness to the rectifiers
I don't know about my new Garmin gps map sounder, Floscan meter, stereo or depth finder.
The engine runs good after a huge money transfusion.
I also just replaced my rear sunpads due to them turning yellow from suntan lotion.
I have not had time to check the rest of the stuff for damage since I am in the middle of remodeling my house right now.

Hope yours turns out better [cheaper] than mine.......

 

[Kerry Cordy]

Hey guys, FYI, I got lucky. I bought a new alternator and replaced the melted wire. Motor fired right back up. I will take to a great Mercury mechanic, plug into DDT and verify all settings etc. What a major relief!

Allen

 

[SLOmofo]

Thats great!