Oldewoodupes

Hey guys,
Hot harness, a little smoke, very scary. Luckily, I was close to home and got the car shutoff and battery disconnected quickly. Trouble is I only had a few minutes to troubleshoot it before I had to go into work tonight and now I can't stop thinking about it. I snapped a couple of pictures. It's a black wire with a red stripe comes off the fuse panel where I've indicated in red, burnt wire is circled in yellow. Travels to the front of the car down the passenger side of the engine bay and cuts across the car in the harness located directly in front of the cooling fan (indicated in red in picture). I assume it is a wire for the headlight motor because the headlights won't go down anymore and worked fine before this issue. Can anyone confirm this? Does anyone know if or where a wiring diagram with wire colour codes is available for a 1978? I appreciate any input, thanks

The Deputy

Don't have a 78's wiring diagram specifically, but my generic one says that's plug N - terminal 8, which is becomes hot when the headlight switch is activated and raises the headlight buckets. Probably a poor connection right where it melted, check to see if the female terminal, is loose on the male/spade terminal coming out of the panel, this will cause resistance...and a meltdown.

Looks to be some weird wiring connections on the headlight lifting motor, plus it looks like someone sprayed something liquid all over the connections.

Brian.

Ducman82

Funky aux fan wiring....... Engine detail spray making things glossy?

Oldewoodupes

Thanks for the info Brian, gives me a place to start. Brian, is the weird connection you mentioned the red/yellow wire in the picture?
The gloss/liquid you see is a silicone based detailer I use on my motorcycles, but this is the first time I've used it on my car. It's quite possible I took it a bit too far, definitely not the first or last time. I'll be looking into whether this is the cause as well tomorrow.
The PO rewired the aux fan to run on demand off a switch located under the dash, works ok I guess.

Oldewoodupes

Fixed! Thanks to your help Brian I was able to locate the short quick. The wire was actually a brown wire with a red stripe, it appeared black in certain areas because it was burnt. The short was where the headlight motor wiring exits the harness on the front drivers side. The wires were pinched between the manual headlight operator and the radiator. The brown wire with the red stripe became stripped over time and made contact with the radiator. Doesn't look like any foul play here, appears to be factory, so maybe take a quick look at yours to see if the same is happening. Here's a picture of the 4 wires I'm talking about located in yellow circle. Cheers

The Deputy

Good news!

Keep the wheels rolling.

Brian.