Melting Negative terminal, SHORT?

[CHnKTSi]

OK. let me start this. My starter motor was making grinding noise for awhile.
Today, I finally decided to check it out after school.
So i drove from school to my house, and as i was pulling into the driveway, the car died out. Smoke came out of the hood and opened it, and saw that the negative terminal was melted. I mean metal boiling. So i swapped out the terminal from my part car. and as i was putting the terminal to the negative battery, the terminal started sparking and wanting to melt again. Well, i was thinking the starter motor was shorting something in the car.
Also, it was raining hard and i was driving through the puddles (mad puddles in this side of Texas. Bad draining system.)
But nothing was wrong until the rain dried.
Could it be the starter motor shorting something?
Or rain shorting something else?
Or just my car needs whole new wiring?
my car just sucks?
please help me out.

 

[Defiant]

Could it be the starter motor shorting something?

Possibly. How deep was the water you went through? You have a dead short someplace, and since it's not taking out fuses, sounds like the starter is the first suspect. I'm guessing this is with the hood up, and that you're not shorting the positive to the hood, or a strut brace.

 

[spatulahunter1]

im sorry, corroded connections and electrical problems are one of the biggest pains in the automotive world to trace. Hopefully it didnt short things out. You can very easily fry your computer with an arc that large. Now would be a great time to run new ground and power wires just to be safe.