Fuse box fire!!!

[ed209]

In investigating the cause of my non operational rear heated screen (D8) I found the fault to be a melted relay along with the plug and wiring harness that it plugs into!
The damage seems quite extensive, although no other systems are affected. The rear screen fuse never blew, so there must be a stray live feed still burried in the dash amongst the carnage!!
Any ideas on what could cause this? There are no signs of water getting in anywhere, so I can rule that out!

[teamster1975]

Oh sh1t!
It must have been a short or someone hacked into the wiring some time in the cars past.
It may even be that the plug wasn't seated fully and it had been arcing and eventually shorted out!
In any event if you chop it all back to good wire and grab the loom from a breakers to resolder all should be hunky dory!

[ed209]

Yeah, could have been nasty!
My neighbour has a 406 which he wants to break, so I will be robbing it of all its worth before the scrap man calls.
Tis about time I got lucky!





*note to self.........carry a fire extinguisher just in case!! *

[steve_earwig]

Eek! Car fire - nightmare!

Perhaps the short was somewhere not covered by the fuse - the switch, wiring or relay for instance. Then again, maybe ther is a short but it's not passing quite enough current to blow the fuse so just slow-cooks everything.

I was just thinking about a fire extinguisher, I have one left over from the Nissan Useless (legal requirement), anyone got any natty places to put one? My dad's E124 Merc had one* mounted on the front of the passenger seat, easy to get to yet didn't interfere with the passenger's legs




*optional extra would you believe, in fact that Merc had so many optional extras it doubled the original list price

[ed209]

I will be doing a thorough investigation when I start stripping it all out, will post my findings.

I carry a fire extinguisher in the boot (taxi regulations) but tis not much cop there when the flames could be lapping at your feet!

[teamster1975]

It'd be interesting to know, that's pretty thick gauge cable running to the rear screen!

[mjb]

Could be the relay had some manufacturing defects causing it to melt from the inside out under normal operating current?

[teamster1975]

Could be the relay had some manufacturing defects causing it to melt from the inside out under normal operating current?

That's possible I suppose, either that or it's just broken down through age and shorted out?

[mjb]

but what would the effect of shorting out be - the heater would be on permanently...

[teamster1975]

Oh no, I meant +ve to -ve short, although thinking about it that should be impossible in a relay unless the guts completely melted!

[ed209]

I can confirm that the guts of the relay have completely melted! Looks like the leftovers of a black plastic soup in there!!

[teamster1975]

Oh my gawd!
Thank christ it burnt out before setting something else alight!

[ed209]

Its a sobering thought! I had a MK1 Fiesta catch alight on me when I was 17 (another electrical fault), burnt to the ground as I stood back waiting for the Fire Brigade!

I couldn't take that same fate upon my beloved 6, so I consider myself lucky!

[steve_earwig]

My first aid kit is in the back (legal requirement even though I have no training to use it), like ed209, an extinguisher might be a bit out of reach there.

[ed209]

On setting out to relieve my donor vehicle of its relay, socket and wiring harness to replace my burnt out items I discovered the donor vehicle to have suffered the same fate!!
So thats 2 d8's with a burnt out relay, blackened and charred socket and wiring! Thats an epidemic in my book!

Has anyone else suffered the same fate?

I will be checking out all d8's at the scrapyard in my search for parts, for evidence of fire!!