Weird electrical problem

[Zac Helm]

Greetings all,

So about a week ago I had been working on my 1971 Cadillac Fleetwood hearse. The engine was running and all of the sudden it up and died. I figured out that the main battery cable had come too close to the engine block and ground out. After that everything went south.

Nothing works now and I have checked the three wires coming from the starter to the back of the fuse block, I have bypassed them and still no go. The interior lights come on, but even when the doors are shut and I turn the lights off, they stay on. They just glow dimmer when I turn them off, but stay on.

I have used a testing light and when I run the testing light to the fuse block and attach the ground to a positive lead (to check for wires that are grounding out) half the fuse block itself lights up the tester.

I have fried battery cables before but I have never in my life seen something like this where everything has gone berserk after it happened. I find it hard to believe that I somehow fried everything in my car because honestly even when the battery cable ground out, it was pretty mild. There are no signs of burnt wires elsewhere. I tried both testing and bypassing the inline fuses on those three wires and they are not the issue.

Any tips are greatly appreciated.

[Bullitt2001]

Sounds like you have a back-feed issue or a short to power problem. I am not sure how your particular system is wired, but it seems like maybe a wire is damaged/shorted that you may have missed. Do you have a wiring diagram? Do you have access to a power probe? If a wire got shorted in the system elsewhere before you stopped the grounding at the block, even though you are bypassing the obvious wires that were involved, it is possible to have a back-feeding or short to power issue. I would start with a wiring diagram and go from there. I hope this may help.
Vernon

[TJ Hopland]

Interior lights typically have the + live all the time and are grounded by the door switches to turn them on.  Most everything else the + is the switched side.  One somewhat exception would be the ignition system if you are still running points.  Key sends + to the coil and the ground comes from the points in the distributor.  I will pull out some drawings later and see if I see anything that could explain all this.

[Wayne Womble 12210]

I assume you grounded the positive cable against the manifold?  I would check the connections of the negative battery cable and also the attachment to the frame or engine.  If that positive cable was shorted there was a very high flow of current. Enough to weaken the connections or the cables.

[Roger H]

I found this diagram at the library, check and bypass the black red wire from the starter to the fuse block.  if necessary run a temp wire with aligator clips from the battery right to the fuse pannel.  are you sure their are no fusible links by the starter? to check them easilly, grab them and pull hard, if good they will not break but if bad the rubber will stretch and break meaning the link inside is already melted.  It sounds like somthing melted and broke.  How much smoke was let out?  once you let the smoke out of an electrical item it is no good.

Roger

[Ohio57-62Sedan]

I have to agree with Roger, It sound's to me like you have a blown fusible link. That's the only reason your car did not burn to the ground.  Find the short Fix it,and Replace them DO NOT Jump them for any reason they are there to protect you car and it's electrical system. I have seen car's burn up because somebody just used wire instead of the correct Fusible Link.. there are different guages of link's so make shure you use a heavy link on the starter cir..

[Guidematic]

 Did they use fusible links this far back?

Mike

[Ohio57-62Sedan]

Yep they should have three at the starter..