dr bob

Adding it to all the places where fire is a concern wouldn't leave much room for anything else. In this case a pair of wires carrying primary current for every load in the car less cooling fans, fuel pump, oxy sensor heater, and fuel injectors. The subject wiring passes along the top of the right-side fenderwall in the engine bay, above the exhaust but hidden behind a couple smaller coolant vent hoses, and the the coolant reservoir before passing down along the firewall and tub to pass into the passenger compartment above the central electrics panel. Depending on the dump temperature for the hose, is there a chance that the extreme temps in that area would spill the Halon before there was a wiring fire?

Instead, the discussion goes towards preventing the insulation melt-through. Car's original proposal was to add a very large fuse near the battery, but that location only protects against a wiring fault between the battery and the solenoid. As Alan shares, the circuits really need source-end fusing, so there would be fuses between the starter and the alternator, at either end of that cable. One for the ABS feeder there too, another at the alternator for the cabling between there and the CE panel, a section that includes the cabling between the "jump post" to CE panel that appears to be at the root of the fire. Fusing that section at the correct protection level would preclude use as an actual jump-start post, unless you used a slow-blow fuse or breaker there.

I think Alan summed it up perfectly:

"There is only so much you can easily do without getting into extensive modifications. If you are going to change the primary wiring at all you need to be very sure you can implement it well - or you are just adding new risks."

worf928

X 928.

I am reminded that the Apollo 1 command capsule's electrical fire's root cause was "a failure of imagination" Or in other words, Humans are not very good at figuring out all possible, or even all probable, failure modes. Certainly not one human by him/herself.