Battery cable shorted out and burned the core support

[icanfixall]

WTH is this. As I'm working on the engine I noticed the main hot cable from the drivers side battery had grounded and burned the core support and melted the insulation... So I carefully removed the cable from the battery and investigated why it happened. Really no reason but it did just the same. About 3 months ago while on the freeway about 70 miles away I noticed the battery lite flickering. Well I figured its brushes in the alt. Then this past Thursday I just fueled up and noticed it flickering again. Now I'm really thinking its time to investigate the alt... So I neatly repaired the damaged cable and wrapped it in wire loom plastic. Did some lite body work there too. Checked the passenger side cable area and cleaned that side up with a little metal moveing too. We will see... I'm really surprised the 1100 amps didn't melt the copper cable in two and burned all the metal away from it.. Maybe it arced all the touching metal and stopped grounding...

 

[gatorman21218]

Fun suff huh? I had that happen a few years ago. My cable was grounding on my coolant filter ball valve. It melted the handle off. It also burned through the cable halfway. My battery light was flickering, the rear abs light was on, the radio went to static and my headlights were dimming. Oh and the air coming off the heater core was 500 degrees according to my brother who was riding shotgun.

In high school my physics teacher told us that you needed a lot of volts to create a spark. Like thousands. I told him no. All you need is 12 volts and a wrench long enough to touch both terminals

 

[jrad235]

In high school my physics teacher told us that you needed a lot of volts to create a spark. Like thousands. I told him no. All you need is 12 volts and a wrench long enough to touch both terminals

Rofl, unfortunately I have to re-learn this lesson every now and again. Thankfully no damage done so far.