drisin80

just when i thought that replacing the snapped b pillar on my 90 c4 cab was a big problem, something happened that really seems serious. since the car had not been started for a couple of weeks, and the battery was low, i decided to charge it . after charging(with it disconnected), i reconnected it, and with the key out it seemed to be pulling a lot of current. i looked over the hood to see smoke billowing out of the dashboard, from the center to the passenger side of the car. i immediately disconnected the battery, made sure it was not on fire, and sat down to consider this. a couple of days later, i tried to reconnect to see if any current was going anywhere, and with the key in, all systems seem dead. i pulled the relays, and checked the fuses, and none appear to be blown. no smoke was coming from the trunk compartment around the fuse/relay block. i am unsure of how to proceed from here, and any input on this problem would be greatly appreciated. thanks----tom

Indycam

Worst first post award goes to....

Any chance that the battery cables got put on neg for pos and pos for neg ?
If you do that , it can cause smoked parts . BTDT .

Lemons to lemonade , the good thing about smoked parts is they most times "show bad" .

Remove the battery , put it in the corner farthest from the car .
Don't put it back in untill you have found the problem / problems and have fixed um up .
Putting power to a smoked part can make it into a burning part . A burnt down 90 c4 cab .....

Pull the radio , pop its top off and look for smoke marks / smoked parts .
I doubt its the radio cause other things are dead , but ya never know .
If its not the radio look inside the dash for what smoked .
Pull a gauge at a time and have a look see behind .
If you see nothing behind the gauge put it back in and pull the next one .
Pull the glove box out and have a look see behind and above .
Pull the climate control box ....

eddychan

I am really sorry for what happened to your 964.
I know you did disconnect everthing but I just want to remind friends here about recharging a 964 battery, always discount the battery completely and follow all the safety procedure depending on what type of battery you use. 964 is known to give problem when charging a fully connected battery!
It is a good idea to find out why you have a daft battery before the charging process. Very often there is a drain of current which caused the dead battery and that needed to be investigated before hand. I do agree with Indy to start looking for any burnt smelly items and the audio/alarm system and then the climate control system.

Good luck and hope it is something very minor. Could you please let us know what reallty happen when you find out more.

Eddy

drisin80

thanks for input guys. eddy--i think that the battrery was low because of antitheft devices which pull a small amount of current and eventually cause dead battery when the car sits for more than a couple of weeks, as was the case here. anyway--i am going to tear into this on saturday and try to find out what happened. will post progress as more is revealed. ----tom

Smokin

Indycam is right... Start pulling your gauges one by one... Something I've read (I can't remember where) leads me to believe it's going to be the clock. Anyone?

jeffnudd

The smell should be very strong normally when you get electrical faults it stinks and it should be too hard to find once you start stripping.

38D

Do you get any power at all when you turn the key? It could be the airbag system, as that is not fused. If you melt the airbag wires, the DME cuts out so the car won't start (safety measure). Pull the switches in the center console to see if that's it.

drisin80

hi-- thanks for all of th e replies. yes, the smell was very strong--as was the amount of smoke which seemed to be coming out of the vents and dash area only.colin-- if the dme is involved (i get nothing now when i reconnect the battery and put the key in), where is this, and what am i in for??? i suspect that because of the amount of smoke involved that i will be able to find where the meltdown occurred, but am unsure as to what damage this might have caused in other areas, and what to look for. thanks--tom

Indycam

Where are you ?

drisin80

hi-- live in northwest pennsylvania.---tom

wsybert

Tom,
Where in NW PA. I live in Zelienople and could take a look if you are not too far.
I was just up in Erie on Wednesday.
Bill

JasonAndreas

I don't know if you responded privately to Indycam so I'll ask, did you accidentally swap the positive and negative leads going to the battery? I don't think anything in the car has reverse polarity voltage protection(?) so you might have to go through the wiring diagrams and look at anything connected to Term 30.

Indycam

No PM here .

darth

If it were my car I'd be doing a visual inspection of the wires under the dash - with the amount of smoke you described and if it were wires that were heating up and melting the plastic insulation and creating the smoke, there must be signs of melted insulation around the wires. If you know what electronic components smell like when they burn (i.e. tantalums capacitors and resistors have a di"stinkly"(bad play on words) different smell than plastic insulation when they burn) then concentrate on looking at any devices (i.e. radio, clock etc) that have these kind of components. Since you put the battery in and there is no response when you turn the key a likely area to look at is the ignition wires.

Hope this helps
Bill
90C2

Indycam

Whats up ?