The Brown Truck went down like a champ, in flames of glory!

[6 Nebraska IDIs]

Yep the old girl died on me about a week and a half ago. The wiring harness caught fire after work one night and she even got me home, me not noticing the smell of burning wires, before she died. I got home, shut her off and noticed smoke rolling out from under the hood. Luckily the fire had blown out on the drive but the damage had been done, there's melted wires throughout the wiring harness. I have to count my blessings, atleast I still have a truck to work on, considering what happened I could have been visiting the old girl in a salvage yard in the form of a crispy heap. Right now I'm not really sure what my plans are for her but I have to admit, the haul home of 200 miles with a cummins powered 3500 Dodge. I had bad thoughts on that trip home. I was impressed at how easily that engine pulled what was atleast a 9000lb load. The trailer in the picture is made of I beams and solid steel sheets and weighed nearly 3000lbs in itself. I thought "man I'm already replacing the wiring harness anyway, why not just wire in an ECU and put a 12 valve in there while I'm at it!" lol

I doubt funds will permit such ideas but I'm back to work on the brown truck again. She will ride again some day, hopefully sooner rather than later, I already miss her.

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[jaluhn83]

Sad to hear it.

I wouldn't think the wiring would be too hard to repair though. Just get a junkyard harness and slap it on there. Even if you have to redo the entire front clip harness it's not that much. Not like you really need that much wiring to get an idi working.

I'd also be curious if you have any idea what actually started it?

 

[6.9poweredscout]

swap in a IH DT360, no wiring needed except the alt, and it's just as much work as swapping a cumapart.

 

[6 Nebraska IDIs]

From the looks of what I've found to be the worst of the wiring fire, the worst of it was a bundle of wires (was like this from Ford) on the passenger fenderwell. It's like they made the harness too long and just wound them all up in a bundle and wrapped the whole thing with that fiber reinforced tape and put a mounting clip in the mess. I'm just guessing but I think maybe after 40 years of vibration a wire rubbed through and shorted out. For whatever reason it didn't blow a fuse and just started melting stuff until a fire broke out. I could smell something off on the drive home but had the windows down, and being farm country, I thought farmers had sprayed their fields and thats all it was. What clued me in to something seriously was wrong was when my gauges started going all over the place, but that was when I was pulling into the driveway.

 

[whiteboyslo]

Posting a pic of your IDI being towed by a Cummins! Isn't that grounds for a temporary ban? Lol.

Mike

 

[towcat]

Posting a pic of your IDI being towed by a Cummins! Isn't that grounds for a temporary ban? Lol.

Mike

lighten up.
if you know the trials and tribulations the truck has put him through, you'd be surprised you are only seeing a truck on a trailer and not a bonfire.
if it makes you feel better, here's a pic of our two trucks getting together for a photo op last summer.

 

[gandalf]

It shouldn't really be too terribly hard to replace the wiring harness, should it? I say that not being the guy who will have to do the job. Is it just the engine harness, or did the fire damage other things too?

Calvin, I didn't realize you'd stopped to see Sean on your adventures last summer. That looks like a school background.

 

[towcat]

It shouldn't really be too terribly hard to replace the wiring harness, should it? I say that not being the guy who will have to do the job. Is it just the engine harness, or did the fire damage other things too?

Calvin, I didn't realize you'd stopped to see Sean on your adventures last summer. That looks like a school background.

some community center with a park acutally. you can see a girl in a neon green quincinera(sp) dress right at the edge of the pic. i tried to get her to pose in front of the two trucks, her mom looked at me like I was completely crazy. I am

 

[gandalf]

No comment. I'm not going to even address that last thought. After all, you know where to find me.

 

[91idi]

Pm me if you want a harness. I saved the one from the from my parts truck. Even has the tac wiring

 

[whiteboyslo]

lighten up.
if you know the trials and tribulations the truck has put him through, you'd be surprised you are only seeing a truck on a trailer and not a bonfire.
if it makes you feel better, here's a pic of our two trucks getting together for a photo op last summer.

It was sarcasm, hence the 'lol'.

Mike

 

[rowingdude]

If you had a gasoline powered truck, you'd have been in more trouble. Diesel doesn't burn well uncompressed, take a cup of diesel and drop a match in it, the match will go out before the diesel ignites... The 12v doesn't have much more in the way of wiring than our IDIs, but they're so freaking over priced because they're the "Cool swap".

Around here, I can't find a 12v Cummins in my area (Kalamazoo, MI) for less than $2k. The 24vs are cheaper, but you have to either go through a bunch of BS wiring to make them work, or you have to do some P-pump thing, and that is $3k or so in and of itself.

A much cheaper option, mentioned above, are the International I-6 motors (DT360, DT466, etc). I wouldn't even consider a Cummins swap unless it was given to me free.

 

[Dieselcrawler]

Diesel will ignite, more so when warm. Heat up some fuel and throw sparks at it... Will go up. Don't ask how I know, but my old boss looked like Charlie Brown for a few months till his hair and eyebrows grew back.....

 

[S-west]

Must be a bullnose thing. One of my buddies had 2 burn up on him. And another guy I ran into said he had one burn up. Makes me want to go through the wiring on my truck and make sure it's up to par haha

 

[icanfixall]

Sean thats really a sad message about your brown truck. I know how much it means to you. Sounds like the main engine wire harness plug was where the fire started. What happens there is the glow plug feed wire connections in the plug get some corrosion on them. then that heats up the plug so much that it melts it. Then wires cross and a fire starts. I started my truck one morning and saw a puff of smoke leaving the hood and cowl area. Thought it was the new starter. Shut down and restarted the engine easily so opened the hood looking for smoke reasons. Was touching and moveing the harnes when I felt the hot plug. Then I saw the melted parts. Our glow plug controller requires lots of amps and ford did the wrong thing. They ran two small wires to it for the carrying capasity. Its barely enough. Going thru the main engine wire harness plug is like a reducer in a fluid system. The plug pins are much too small to carry the load. Any corrosion and you get lots of heat. then melting and then fire. I bypassed the plug and ran a 4 or 6 gauge wire from an audio car shop with the end lugs crimped and soldiered on. No more fire or melting danger. The coltrollers are always hot just like the alternater is with power. Look at the fender mounted solenoid and trace it back to the positive hot side of the batteries. Its a scarey thought that both of the batteries are feeding so much power and amps to those small wires. Any grounding will weld those wires and burn them down in mili seconds..