Fire onboard!

Right i have just picked up a beauty! A golf mk1 1.3 with 29600 miles on the clock for a cracking price! it was bloddddy sweeet. There was no radio in it as the previous owner had taken it out. They had put the cables for it tucked behind. When driving along i was playing with the fans when smoke started pouring out of the dash. What had happened is that the mechanical arm controling the vents had somehow tangled the power lead for the CD player, earthed it and then shorted. There was a lot of smoke, very dramatic, but after turning off the igintion and running away, the smoke died down, i took out the fuse for the circuit (number 3). Drove to my destination and loving every moment of it!!

Came to the car the next day and the battery was dead. I removed the fuse because i thought that the wire may be resisting and draining the battery. I jumped the car and tested the alternator and it was fine. But why did the battery drain? Is there something that could have happened that is shorting else where? I traced the cable back as far as i could and i could not see any other damage, also no smoke from anywhere else in the car. Can someone maybe point me in the right direction to diagnose why the battery is draining after the above events? It really is very annoying. the next step is to take off the dash and check all the wiring, something i dont really wanna do!.

Cheers
Charlie.

Perhaps the battery was already kaput !

Try a new one it's not uncommon to drain overnight if faulty .

hey its weird though cause it kepts its charge for two nights before the fire happened! i found its not the power for the cd player but it was a cable for a parking light back in the day, i managed to remove the cable but left it over night last night and the battery is flat again!!! very annoying! anyone have any tests i can do? Cheers
Charlie

Try this then …….park car up for the night , disconnect battery. Connect 24hours later does it still hold a charge ? Yes , find out what is draining it by simple substitution [lights ,stereo, alarm etc etc]. No ? new battery from GSF ?30.00 sorted .


Cheers……………

all fixed now, battery was the problem so glad it wasnt any other wiring. The cable that caught fire was wrapped around all the other looms of cabling so it could have been a distaster! but it was ok!
Thanks for ur help guys, learned a lot
Cheers
Charlie

smoke coming out of the dash can be scary.
i always cringe when i think back to when me and Karl were on our way back from wolverhampton in the cossie and it went up in smoke. not every day u see a cossie on the back on a recovery truck lol  
the abs module and the ignirion wiring had shorted and smokey smokey!!
we had to take the whole dash out and disect the wiring loom and replace the wire from the n/s or the car to the ignition barrel. now that was a pain in the a**e!

glad u got it all sorted now mate! x

went dead again didnt it!!! there must be a short somewhere draining something! so annnnnoying. Ive installed the new battery, but when i leave it over night dead! was fine an hour ago! now dead! SOOOO SHIT! i did the test of puting a test light between the negative lead and the battery and nothing lit up so i did just think it was the battery! but still its going dead. Anyone got any other tests i can do? the bat was brand new. the alternator is fine, tested and retested.
charlie