I was just finishing up installing new carpet in my
'78 1500 when I noticed smoke rising up from the rear
of main cockpit section, behind the seats. It smelled
electrical, so thinking the only way to "de-energize"
the system would be to disconnect the negative battery
cable. Luckily there was someone around to help me
open the bonnet (were these things designed so that
one person can't do something so simple?) and as soon
as I disconnected the cable, the smoking stopped. I
began to peel back some of the carpet in the rear and
found that insulation on one wire had melted away,
exposing bare wire which I suspected shorted to the
body ground.
I'm not the fastest carpet installer in the world, and
it's nice that there are two sides to every spitfire
interior - the first side where you learn how to do
something, and the second side that goes together much
more smoothly. The one thing I didn't think of until
later, is that throughout the entire installation (4.5
hrs maybe with breaks) both doors were left open.
With the light under the dash that stays on with the
doors being open, would these wires have heated up to
the point of melting insulation, or did I screw down,
pinch, crimp, bind or otherwise make a mess of the
wiring during the carpet install?
I'm looking forward to de-installing everything today,
simply because I now know how to re-install both sides
efficiently. But I'm not the smartest where
electrical systems go... I would like to just rewire
the frayed section and hope that nothing cronic is at
fault, but how do I go about reassuring myself of
this. Thanks for your comments.
Dirk
'78 pictures found at:
http://www.egr.msu.edu/~frazier
Pictures of new interior when I can get it running
safely again!
|