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Kind of a sad story:

1) Today I replaced the oil, oil filter, air filter, and fuel filter (I
still smell like gas <g>).

2) I'm having a pretty good day as I finish up before supper.

3) I go to start the van to put it back in it's place in the garage,
and the battery is dead...it's been weak-ish for a couple months,
probably needs replaced soon, but I figure I'll just jump it.

Here's where it gets interesting:

4) I have a 12-volt "deep cycle" battery in the garage that we use for
our pop-up camper...I figure I'll just grab my jumper cables and jump
from this battery to the van.

5) I hook up the pos and neg to the deep cycle battery, and then the
pos to the van's battery, and the neg to an obvious looking piece of
metal against the dash...I think it's a brace of somekind for the
windshield wipers.

6) I take about 3 seconds and jump into the driver's seat and get ready
to turn the key, and LOTS of smoke starts pouring out of the front of
the firewall in the engine compartment...kind of in the center, just to
the right of the power brake booster...I jump out of the driver's seat
and disconnect the jumper cables...the cables were probably on there for
a total of 10 seconds...maybe less.

7) As I stand outside the van, looking at the slowly dissapating (sp?)
smoke, I notice that it's also coming out thru all the vents INSIDE the
van as well.

So right now, I'm afraid to touch the thing...though when my wife got
home, we did try a jump from our Galant, I hooked up the cables and my
wife IMMEDIATELY turned the key in the van...nothing happened...no
cranking, no smoke...those cables were connected for about 3 seconds
because I didn't know why the same thing might not happen again, even
though THIS time was a very "normal" jump, and I've did a bunch of jumps
with great success with other vehicles...i.e...NO SMOKE <g>.

The battery is measuring 7 volts...I'm wondering if it is SO dead that
when I hooked up that deep cycle battery, the van's battery (or
something else in the van?), drew SO MUCH current, that something
started to melt/burn.

I'm going to have it towed tomorrow (Tuesday) to a VW place and have
them look at it.

I hope I didn't fry anything inside the dash...and I hope the smell goes
away soon.

So anybody have a clue as to why the battery won't accept a "normal"
jump?

Why it's apparently drawing so much current (sparks fly whenever I hook
up a charging source to it) that it's frying parts of the dash?

Anybody have an experience like this?

Thanks...

--

Bill Salopek
ICQ: 20536257
No worries...
Business:
Home:

At 12:41 AM 9/14/1999 -0600, you wrote:

Kind of a sad story:

1) Today I replaced the oil, oil filter, air filter, and fuel filter (I
still smell like gas <g>).

2) I'm having a pretty good day as I finish up before supper.

3) I go to start the van to put it back in it's place in the garage,
and the battery is dead...it's been weak-ish for a couple months,
probably needs replaced soon, but I figure I'll just jump it.

Here's where it gets interesting:

4) I have a 12-volt "deep cycle" battery in the garage that we use for
our pop-up camper...I figure I'll just grab my jumper cables and jump
from this battery to the van.

5) I hook up the pos and neg to the deep cycle battery, and then the
pos to the van's battery, and the neg to an obvious looking piece of
metal against the dash...I think it's a brace of somekind for the
windshield wipers.

6) I take about 3 seconds and jump into the driver's seat and get ready
to turn the key, and LOTS of smoke starts pouring out of the front of
the firewall in the engine compartment...kind of in the center, just to
the right of the power brake booster...I jump out of the driver's seat
and disconnect the jumper cables...the cables were probably on there for
a total of 10 seconds...maybe less.

7) As I stand outside the van, looking at the slowly dissapating (sp?)
smoke, I notice that it's also coming out thru all the vents INSIDE the
van as well.

So right now, I'm afraid to touch the thing...though when my wife got
home, we did try a jump from our Galant, I hooked up the cables and my
wife IMMEDIATELY turned the key in the van...nothing happened...no
cranking, no smoke...those cables were connected for about 3 seconds
because I didn't know why the same thing might not happen again, even
though THIS time was a very "normal" jump, and I've did a bunch of jumps
with great success with other vehicles...i.e...NO SMOKE <g>.

The battery is measuring 7 volts...I'm wondering if it is SO dead that
when I hooked up that deep cycle battery, the van's battery (or
something else in the van?), drew SO MUCH current, that something
started to melt/burn.

I'm going to have it towed tomorrow (Tuesday) to a VW place and have
them look at it.

I hope I didn't fry anything inside the dash...and I hope the smell goes
away soon.

So anybody have a clue as to why the battery won't accept a "normal"
jump?

Why it's apparently drawing so much current (sparks fly whenever I hook
up a charging source to it) that it's frying parts of the dash?

Anybody have an experience like this?

Thanks...

Dear Bill,

Why not disconnect the battery from the vehicle and put it on a regular
battery charger? That has to be cheaper than calling for a tow truck...

The problem you have may well be an intermittent short(s) which is
draining your battery. Obviously the smoke generator(s) is near the fresh
air intake for your heating system.

One hint in tracking down the short is to look for scorch marks and/or
melted wiring. There may be more than one short. I had the problem you
described in a newly purchased used airplane once. We found 3 shorts
before we were done, one in the landing gear system. When we tracked down
all of the shorts most of the navigation equipment suddenly worked a lot
better. Two weeks before we had spent almost $2000 at an avionics shop
trying to get these same radios to work better.

I would definitely remove the covers above and below the steering wheel,
and the bus bar cover and base and pull out the panel and check behind it
for burned wire(S).

Reg

leon-@... wrote:

Not that I know anything about this, but what year is your van?

Thanks much.

Leon Webster
'97 EVC

original article:

Kind of a sad story:

1) Today I replaced the oil, oil filter, air filter, and fuel filter

(I

still smell like gas <g>).

2) I'm having a pretty good day as I finish up before supper.

3) I go to start the van to put it back in it's place in the garage,
and the battery is dead...it's been weak-ish for a couple months,
probably needs replaced soon, but I figure I'll just jump it.

Here's where it gets interesting:

4) I have a 12-volt "deep cycle" battery in the garage that we use

for

our pop-up camper...I figure I'll just grab my jumper cables and jump
from this battery to the van.

5) I hook up the pos and neg to the deep cycle battery, and then the
pos to the van's battery, and the neg to an obvious looking piece of
metal against the dash...I think it's a brace of somekind for the
windshield wipers.

6) I take about 3 seconds and jump into the driver's seat and get

ready

to turn the key, and LOTS of smoke starts pouring out of the front of
the firewall in the engine compartment...kind of in the center, just

to

the right of the power brake booster...I jump out of the driver's seat
and disconnect the jumper cables...the cables were probably on there

for

a total of 10 seconds...maybe less.

7) As I stand outside the van, looking at the slowly dissapating

(sp?)

smoke, I notice that it's also coming out thru all the vents INSIDE

the

van as well.

So right now, I'm afraid to touch the thing...though when my wife got
home, we did try a jump from our Galant, I hooked up the cables and my
wife IMMEDIATELY turned the key in the van...nothing happened...no
cranking, no smoke...those cables were connected for about 3 seconds
because I didn't know why the same thing might not happen again, even
though THIS time was a very "normal" jump, and I've did a bunch of

jumps

with great success with other vehicles...i.e...NO SMOKE <g>.

The battery is measuring 7 volts...I'm wondering if it is SO dead that
when I hooked up that deep cycle battery, the van's battery (or
something else in the van?), drew SO MUCH current, that something
started to melt/burn.

I'm going to have it towed tomorrow (Tuesday) to a VW place and have
them look at it.

I hope I didn't fry anything inside the dash...and I hope the smell

goes

away soon.

So anybody have a clue as to why the battery won't accept a "normal"
jump?

Why it's apparently drawing so much current (sparks fly whenever I

hook

up a charging source to it) that it's frying parts of the dash?

Anybody have an experience like this?

Thanks...

--

Bill Salopek
ICQ: 20536257
No worries...
Business:
Home:

Not that I know anything about this, but what year is your van?

Sorry...it's a '93 GL.

--

Bill Salopek
ICQ: 20536257
No worries...
Business:
Home:

<<5) I hook up the pos and neg to the deep cycle battery, and then the
<<pos to the van's battery, and the neg to an obvious looking piece of
<<metal against the dash...I think it's a brace of somekind for the
<<windshield wipers.

<<drew SO MUCH current, that something
<<started to melt/burn.

The wiper motor is mounted on rubber bushings to prevent noise from getting
into the passenger compartment. The ground wire to the wiper motor is about
18AWG, and will never handle the current that the starter needs. Do the
wipers still work? The negative should always be connected to the vehicle
frame or even better the engine block. I suspect as a minimum you will have
to replace the ground wire from the wiper to the fuse block ground, if not
the motor. There may be other damaged wires.

Do the
wipers still work?

The wipers still work.

I suspect as a minimum you will have
to replace the ground wire from the wiper to the fuse block ground, if not
the motor. There may be other damaged wires.

So far so good...everything seems to be working. Though I just did a
quick test.

I looked up inside the dash and could see no damage, but as you know,
there are many items that are hidden from view.

This was my mistake (I just can't believe I did this):

Today I was going to remove the battery and test it...I took off the
main wires, and there I saw the "+" anf "-".

And guess what.

It was THE OPPOSITE of what I thought ther were!

Good grief!

Last night, when I was trying to figure out which one was pos and which
was neg, and after looking at the battery for several minutes, not
finding the markings, I assumed (oh boy) that the terminal with all the
RED wires was POSITIVE, just like every other car I've ever worked on.

Well it wasn't...hence, smoke.

But like I said, all seems to be working fine now, as hard to believe as
that might be.

Are all VW's hooked up with RED wires to NEGATIVE and BALCK to
POSITIVE? Is this a German thing?

--

Bill Salopek
ICQ: 20536257
No worries...
Business:
Home:

So far so good...everything seems to be working. Though I just did a
quick test.

I looked up inside the dash and could see no damage, but as you know,
there are many items that are hidden from view.

This was my mistake (I just can't believe I did this):

Today I was going to remove the battery and test it...I took off the
main wires, and there I saw the "+" anf "-".

And guess what.

It was THE OPPOSITE of what I thought ther were!

Good grief!

Last night, when I was trying to figure out which one was pos and which
was neg, and after looking at the battery for several minutes, not
finding the markings, I assumed (oh boy) that the terminal with all the
RED wires was POSITIVE, just like every other car I've ever worked on.

Well it wasn't...hence, smoke.

But like I said, all seems to be working fine now, as hard to believe as
that might be.

Are all VW's hooked up with RED wires to NEGATIVE and BALCK to
POSITIVE? Is this a German thing?

Dear Bill,

I think the sparking and the smoke in your case was simply the wrong
battery hookup. I can assure that my 92 VW has red cables to + and black
cables to -.
Red (positive) cables come up the right side of my battery and Black
(negative) cables come up the right hand side of my battery.

In fact with my genuine VW autobahn battery it is extremely difficult to
put the battery in backwards because the positive terminal has a cover over
it built right into the battery.

Good luck with the electrical stuff.

Reg

In a message dated 09/14/1999 2:46:44 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
ws@... writes:

Today I was going to remove the battery and test it...I took off the
main wires, and there I saw the "+" anf "-".
(snip)
It was THE OPPOSITE of what I thought ther were!
(snip)
Last night, when I was trying to figure out which one was pos and which
was neg, and after looking at the battery for several minutes, not
finding the markings, I assumed (oh boy) that the terminal with all the
RED wires was POSITIVE, just like every other car I've ever worked on.

Well it wasn't...hence, smoke.

Bill -

The reverse connections you describe should have led to a gazillion amp
current flow from the 24 VDC source through the nearly zero resistance,
limited by the "fusing" capability of the wiper ground wire. I would expect
this wire to have vaporized instantaneously. On the other hand, had you
connected the jumper cable to the engine block as reccommended, one or both
batteries most probably would have overheated and exploded, spraying battery
acid among other things. This is why safety glasses are reccommended when
jumping a car battery.

Is this wire a ground return for the wiper motor, or is it a ground
connection for the otherwise isolated motor frame? The latter case would be
for electrical noise suppression, so if it is broken the wipers may still
function but you may hear noise on the radio, especially on weak AM stations.

I continue to be intreagued by the fact that you still use the term "No
worries..." in your signature.

Bill Armstrong, EVC Speculator
'71 Econoline (home brew camper)

I continue to be intreagued by the fact that you still use the term "No
worries..." in your signature.

<g>.

Yeah...it's always there...more of a hope than a truth.

I noticed some burned wires today near the firewall...I'll have to look
closer to see how close I am to bare wires touching.

I did notice one thing today that will need atention...the brake light
is always on...I checked the fluid and such, the pedal feels good, I
believe it's one of the wires that go to the sensor that's keeping the
light on...it's routed right there near where the other wires were
burned.


--

Bill Salopek
ICQ: 20536257
No worries...
Business:
Home: