bad day to-day. now there's only one thing i never touch on my car cos i don't know anything about it and thats the electrics. but today the gf comes home and tells me the tp almost loss power once wjile she was driving. it only happened once for a second. so thinking i could find and fix the problem i went and had a look. i noticed the ground cable and fuseable links coming off the battery had melted a bit . Easy i thought , just go a but some new wire cut of the old bit and replace it with the new. just put the connections back on and woooohhha a huge white/yellow cloud of smoke pours out of the engine bay. almost like i did a sick burnout but i never do those. so all the new wires got fryed and the radiator fan 30a fuse got blown up as well. lucky im with racq ulta care. so the tp's getting towed to an auto elec to find out if i fryed everything or just what i could see, fingers crossed it isn't too expensive.

oh mate that sucks.. sorry to hear. Hopefully it's not too expensive ay. Good luck with it

Much safer running a ground wire kit than replacing the actual ground wire. You can make a groundwire kit yourself, or buy one if it uses some heavy duty wire. A ground wire kit basically provides a supplementary grounding path (the thick negative wire off the battery is the ground wire). Car components receive their power essentially directly from the positive terminal of the battery, and the circuit is completed (which allows current to flow) by grounding the negative wire to the cars body. The car body is made of metal which is an excellent conductor, and this is in turn connected to the battery by the ground wire you are referring to. A ground wire kit creates several other connections with areas primarily around the engine bay and provides a direct link by copper wire. This is supposed to improve electrical efficiency by providing a direct current path through copper wire. Electricity flows through the path of least resistance. It also supposed to help with the sensors and improve the spark, resulting in slight power gains.

The end of the ground wire, that is the end thats in the clamps that go onto the battery, as well as the positive wire clamp can corrode over time. If people take the terminal off the end of the negative and positive wires (do one at a time so you don't stupidly put them back to front :shock:) they may be surprised at the amount of corrosion. The terminals can be replaced, or left in a jar of straight vinegar, or vinegar and water, and that will remove the corrosion (its the simplest thing to remove it). Just rinse it well after! The wires themselves can be cleaned using vinegar in a very small jar that you can place the wires in the engine bay itself. These should sit for an hour say. Best to use a reasonable vinegar, the cheap vinegars are more water than vinegar. Rinse these well too when you're finished. Some will say use sandpaper or a wire brush etc. but this does not remove all the corrosion, only works on the surface wires and actually strips away some of the core wires.

It could have been simply a case of over-corroded terminal wires!

Much safer running a ground wire kit than replacing the actual ground wire. You can make a groundwire kit yourself, or buy one if it uses some heavy duty wire. A ground wire kit basically provides a supplementary grounding path (the thick negative wire off the battery is the ground wire). Car components receive their power essentially directly from the positive terminal of the battery, and the circuit is completed (which allows current to flow) by grounding the negative wire to the cars body. The car body is made of metal which is an excellent conductor, and this is in turn connected to the battery by the ground wire you are referring to. A ground wire kit creates several other connections with areas primarily around the engine bay and provides a direct link by copper wire. This is supposed to improve electrical efficiency by providing a direct current path through copper wire. Electricity flows through the path of least resistance. It also supposed to help with the sensors and improve the spark, resulting in slight power gains.

The end of the ground wire, that is the end thats in the clamps that go onto the battery, as well as the positive wire clamp can corrode over time. If people take the terminal off the end of the negative and positive wires (do one at a time so you don't stupidly put them back to front :shock:) they may be surprised at the amount of corrosion. The terminals can be replaced, or left in a jar of straight vinegar, or vinegar and water, and that will remove the corrosion (its the simplest thing to remove it). Just rinse it well after! The wires themselves can be cleaned using vinegar in a very small jar that you can place the wires in the engine bay itself. These should sit for an hour say. Best to use a reasonable vinegar, the cheap vinegars are more water than vinegar. Rinse these well too when you're finished. Some will say use sandpaper or a wire brush etc. but this does not remove all the corrosion, only works on the surface wires and actually strips away some of the core wires.

It could have been simply a case of over-corroded terminal wires!

thats pretty much what i did to fry it. tryed to do my own grounding kit with nice thick wire, but being a electric noob i put it on the +. so after installing the cd player and 4 speakers i thought i could tackle most electrical things but man i was wrong. i'll find out the damage tommorow. and from then on when it comes to the electrics , i'll pay some one to do it. im happy to do the rest of the car but the electrics freak me:shock:

:D looks like it wasn't as bad as i first thought.because of the way i wired it , i bypassed the car totally and just fryed the new wire and poped a fuse. so all they need to do ie re-wire the fuseable links and melted wire and swap the fuse for a new one and i should be all good:D

The electrics can be a real pain at times, but stick with it.:)

its good that you didnt cause any damage :)

Once when i was a n00b, i tried jump starting a car with speaker wire!!! the wire lit up like a sparkle lol.

its good that you didnt cause any damage :)

Once when i was a n00b, i tried jump starting a car with speaker wire!!! the wire lit up like a sparkle lol.

now i don't feel so dumb :D
It's all fixed now, $135 later he had to rewire the alt cos he recons thats what did the damage plus what i did. and re-wire the fusable links to the battery and now it's all sweet:D next time im gonna research 150% before i touch anything electric. give me a spray gun or torqure wrench and im fine but the elecs stump me for some reason.