As many of you may have heard...I had an close encounter of the flamable kind. Not smoke, FIRE!
So there I was driving along when suddenly the GPS makes some noise about loosing external power...not more then a second follows and my dash is lit-up like a 747 blinking away. A second passes and (as I pull off the road) the whole rig shuts down: the smell of electrical burning is detected. Um...yeah: falls into the category of NOT GOOD!
Up front smoke is rising. We run to the front and find the winch wires molten & smoking. As we pull the quick-disconnect apart a passing motorist pulls over and comes running with a fire extinguisher. His words: you've got a FIRE
going on!!!!
Sure enough...just under the wheel well is live flame. A wire had become so hot that the insulation caught fire and was working its way up into the engine compartment.
We got the fire out likety-split and very minimal damage occured. Today I solved the problem:
The guy I bought the winch from had not had a professional do the job, he had done it himself. He wired the winch polarity backwards and positive juice was flowing right into the ground/carriage of the winch. The paint on both the carriage and H2 recepticle had kept things insulated well, but finally it contacted and the "electrons hit the fan".
You just know I've got pics for ya'all:
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09-09-2003, 05:59 PM
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