Whilst driving the Capella down the lane, smoke happenst to eminate from the area of the Steering Column

 

my word! how ghastly. did you perchance happen to honk the horn?

 

No, but a quick roadside disassembly while awaiting the arrival of a tow-lorry reveals one burnt lead beneath the bonnet, it appears a cold solder joint was utilized to tap power from the Black/White stripe power lead

 

My RX-2 thought it was a british car today.



Leaving Aiken to go to Augusta it started running "off", should have just turned around and gone home. But I digress. As I was leaving a junkyard in Augusta heading home; smoke started pouring out of the steering column as the engine died. Pulled over, killed the ignition, popped the hood and toke off the negative battery lead followed by the positive. Called AAA, waited........ After a while I started troubleshooting once everything cooled down.



Pulled the Steering Column Cover, found a toasted length of 12Ga that was cold glob soldered into the Black/White Stripe power lead from the ignition switch. This lead supplied poer to the coils. Still havent figured out what caused the short, but I am incline to think it was poorly routed and the insulation rubbed through and shorted, or the cold-soldered glob caused a high resitance connection and heated the circut up.





Now I have to investigate all the taped over connections that were done by previous owners of my duece..

 

seems like an odd place to get power? and at least its something simple too.



in the pro7 days they used to get power right from the back of the alternator, little more voltage the better the stock ignition works, but um i dont think it turns off there...

 

I need to figure out where to tap power from. Damn HACK wirers!