TWOpointFORliter
10+ Year Contributor
- 644
- 120
- Jul 31, 2009
-
Crown Point,
Indiana
So the other night I had a small electrical fire in my car. After doing a small highway pull I had smoke coming from my steering column. I ripped the plastics apart on the side of the road to find the small wires that go from the headlight/turn signal switch to the actual hand lever had melted and were sparking/on fire. I separated the wires the best I could and made the decision to drive the car home since I was only a couple miles from home.
When I got home and shut the car off my headlights stayed on but it was late so I killed the battery and went to bed. The next day I switched out the headlight switch in the column but my headlights were still stuck on. They will shit off if I pull the headlight fuse and turn back on when reinstalled. I went through the motions of the new headlight lever also:
-turned the parking lights on and they came on along with the tails.
-turned the headlights on and the seemed to get brighter
-turned the brights on and they came on like normal
-activated the turn signals and the switch started to smoke again.
Killed the battery and started going through wiring again and that’s when I found the wires behind the fuse box had melted together on the headlight relay. The meltdown behind the fuse box appears to be caused by one small red wire from the headlight relay that appears to have gotten ver hot and melted everything. This was a section of my new relocation harness so I pulled that interior section completely out and inspected it. The only damage appears to be behind the fuse box and all the factory wiring shows no signs of damage either.
A couple of questions:
- why didn’t my headlight fuse pop and prevent this?
- Is it more likely the problem started at the switch or behind the fuse box?
- Could the fuse box melt down been caused from my drive home with a hot circuit? Like I didn’t get the wires that were sparking in the column separated good enough?
- is there anything else I should be checking as a possible cause to this?
- I have led tail lights that cause my turn signals to flash faster than normal because I haven’t added a resistor. These have been like this for almost 10 years without issue. Didn’t know if it was possible that the circuit/relay/switch overheated from sitting waiting for traffic to clear with the turn signal on.
- I had the column plastics apart a couple weeks ago and I guess it’s possible I pinched the wires that melted in the column when I put it back together?
Any help/ ideas is greatly appreciated. I am not very good with electrical systems but I’m not completely ignorant to them either.
When I got home and shut the car off my headlights stayed on but it was late so I killed the battery and went to bed. The next day I switched out the headlight switch in the column but my headlights were still stuck on. They will shit off if I pull the headlight fuse and turn back on when reinstalled. I went through the motions of the new headlight lever also:
-turned the parking lights on and they came on along with the tails.
-turned the headlights on and the seemed to get brighter
-turned the brights on and they came on like normal
-activated the turn signals and the switch started to smoke again.
Killed the battery and started going through wiring again and that’s when I found the wires behind the fuse box had melted together on the headlight relay. The meltdown behind the fuse box appears to be caused by one small red wire from the headlight relay that appears to have gotten ver hot and melted everything. This was a section of my new relocation harness so I pulled that interior section completely out and inspected it. The only damage appears to be behind the fuse box and all the factory wiring shows no signs of damage either.
A couple of questions:
- why didn’t my headlight fuse pop and prevent this?
- Is it more likely the problem started at the switch or behind the fuse box?
- Could the fuse box melt down been caused from my drive home with a hot circuit? Like I didn’t get the wires that were sparking in the column separated good enough?
- is there anything else I should be checking as a possible cause to this?
- I have led tail lights that cause my turn signals to flash faster than normal because I haven’t added a resistor. These have been like this for almost 10 years without issue. Didn’t know if it was possible that the circuit/relay/switch overheated from sitting waiting for traffic to clear with the turn signal on.
- I had the column plastics apart a couple weeks ago and I guess it’s possible I pinched the wires that melted in the column when I put it back together?
Any help/ ideas is greatly appreciated. I am not very good with electrical systems but I’m not completely ignorant to them either.