C101 Pin 20 - up in smoke...

[jimbom30cab]

The engine loom is (or was) Red with yellow stripe, there is a little bit of the insulation left by the DME relay but the rest is up in smoke.

The body side insulation colour is unknown as there nothing left of it, all gone up in smoke.

Looks like i need a new body loom and engine loom which is ok,

But am trying to figure out why it went up in smoke so it doesn't happen again.

The car did have ABS but i've not fitted that yet.

C101 Engine side was Red/Yellow

No idea on body side as it's all melted

Any help most appreciated.

Jim

[jimbom30cab]

Body side is brown.

Oh dear.

Probably get away with just a new engine loom as the body side looks ok apart from the c101 pin 20 brown has no insulation.

Should i dissconnect the red/yellow at the c101 pin in future ?

What should I do with the brown earth? shall i just cut it away if it isn't needed to connect at the c101?

thanks

[jimbom30cab]

Just looked up the wiring diagram and it looks like that earth to Pin 20 on the body side of the c101 is unused anyway

so the plan is

1. get a new engine loom.
2. remove the damaged earth wire and pin from the under glove box splice to the c101 pin20 socket (circled in yellow)
3. fit new loom.

Everything else looks ok, luckily i can't find any damage at all on the body side.

[DanThe]

Thought you would have read about this before!

Always cut the earth out of the car side, its not needed, you will need to trace the burnt wire back through the car as it could have melted other wires together inside

[jimbom30cab]

Thanks Dan, i must have read it so many times but I just forgot....... only human !

The brown (bare metal now) goes to the large splice of earths just behind the glove box from what i can see, all the other brown's going to that point look fine.

But i'll trace them all and have a good check. I was super quick turning the key off as soon as i saw a whisper of smoke.

Not the end of the world if i need to replace the body loom as the car is only partially fitted out.

[DanThe]

Yeah its just wires that might touch the melted brown between the C101 and the bolted chassis point

[jimbom30cab]

Thanks mate, i'll check them also, could always do a local repair if needed.

Cheers

[Brianmoooore]

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... 67&start=0

[jimbom30cab]

Good read, thanks. Funny thing is, i've read this so many times but on this occasion just forgot to check

[Brianmoooore]

I've seen this a few times now, and in my experience, the brown wire doesn't seem to cause problems melting other wires where it goes down inside the duct under the fusebox, but no guarantees.
Open up the fusebox, cut away the remains of the brown wire from C101-20 up to where it disappears into the duct, and the body side of things hopefully should be OK.
The engine loom seems to suffer more, in spite of being a thicker wire which shouldn't get so hot, but it's a relatively short wire, coming from the DME relay, so its not a hard job to open up the loom, and remove it completely, if you don't have the later ABS system, or replace it if you do.

[jimbom30cab]

Thanks Brian, i've done just that this evening. I opened up the fuse box and pulled the brown wire out (c101 end) then pulled the wire from inside behind the glove box and cut it away from the splice there.

There is some melted brown insulation on the blue and brown/purple but no damage to them. I checked for continuity between them and there was zero so am happy they are still insulated ok.

So the brown wire has no gone and all i need is a new engine loom and we're back to square 1 again.

The engine loom does need replacing really as it melted a fair bit of the insulation of the other wires. It's a simple change and they are fairly cheap still.

[aimlessrock]

Jim I've a B20 loom i removed from a breaker sat in my garage. Pm me if you need it.

[jimbom30cab]

Thanks matey, i've hopefully got one sorted locally but if not, I will drop you a PM

Thanks again

[joeyb]

I think this happened to Eko when he owned my car before me, it took a couple of years for it to become a problem for me though, the red/yellow cable took out an earth connection that prevented the DME relay from working.

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... light=loom

I never swapped the loom out in the end, just replaced the faulty cable. Its been fine for well over a year now lol so I'll just focus on the M52 swap!

[jimbom30cab]

Hi Joe

See you wednesday eve mate