After yet more remodel work today, time to take the Elky out...beautiful weather for DEC here in W. WA.
She seemed a bit lazy cranking but fired right up. Backed her out of the garage, let here warm up a bit while I used the lawn blower to blow out dust, sawdust, leaves etc from the garage. Then I treated the Elky to a three-minute rinse and wipedown.
Elky now fully warm, out for a little cruise.
Stopped at my Schuck's / O'Reilly store to check on progress for the big conversion to the O'Reilly systems, etc tonight.

Went to fire up the Elky, very lazy cranking then smoke from the rt front of the hood!:( I killed the ignition, then got out, opened the hood and DAMN, the btty terminal-to-fender ground strap had melted into the corner of the Btty!:eek:
A bit more cranking and the hot strap with live current passing through would have melted into the acid with explosive results.

I put on a new ground strap since I was at a parts store... Checking connections, fender to body bolts, etc. I retarded the timing a bit for less load, discovered my distributor was a mite loose...

Maybe a few extra degrees of timing added to the cranking load, the damp grounding strap from the rinse of the car...feel like car CSI here.

Yep, My 70 did that when the ground connection between the battery cable and block came loose.

Glad you found it and it didn't ruin anything big!

That is one hot elky.

Glad it didnt to any major damage.:yes:

George,
You need to do some more checking while you are at it. The little ground strap that goes to the fender really should not have much current going through it, if any at all. Your negative battery cable from the battery to the engine block is where all of the current should be flowing. If you burnt up the little wire, you have a problem with the "real" ground cable.

Bill,

Thinking the same. Just a week ago Cobalt Mike (electrician) and I scraped the block, sanded, etc the connection area on the block. Also tidied-up the metal on the fender where the little ground cable goes to, nice clear area. Replaced the screw with a bolt and a nut on the backside.

I replaced the little ground strap "just because."

I sell auto parts now so will get a new neg cable tomorrow.
Also will pull and reinstall the fender bolts per a text from Cobalt Mike.

George, if you do pull a topside fender bolt or two to clean up the washer/bolt and fender metal contact areas I would recommend looking to see how many fender alignment shims are in there prior to removal. Make sure the same # of shims are still in there when re-installing the bolts.

George,install a solid motor mount on the drivers side....motor will always be grounded even if you lose a ground strap and you don't have to worry about breaking a motor mount ;)
I'm glad nothing serious happened!

George,install a solid motor mount on the drivers side....motor will always be grounded even if you lose a ground strap and you don't have to worry about breaking a motor mount ;)
I'm glad nothing serious happened!


Then Brett would accuse me of having a race car!:D

Actually a very good idea for several reasons including safety and electrical ground :thumbsup:

Just a brief update.

While I had cleaned connections a few weeks back, somehow I did not clean the neg cable end going into the lead terminal. Looked 'good' what I could see. Upon disassembly, it was McNasty. I cut back 2" until I got virgin copper. Then the free cable end, I guess 6 Ga, would not stay in the terminal. Hmmm. Looked around, found a new cable I had bought for something else...4 Ga and Black in color, perfect! Removed the old red/nasty cable, installed the new. Should be good to go.

Will get the motor mount anyway, countinue to update and refine. Next project will be a new positive cable and a starter brace.

Glad you updated your NEG- cable, the correct color at that, a step in the right direction. Let me know if you need a custom length POS+ cable if you can't find one at the store, I've got some leftovers.