94 Gt Smoking Battery Cable

KC802 · Sep 23, 2017

Car: 94 gt 5.0
Hi,looking for some help with a smoking battery cable,its the small neg cable on the battery.
Here's what's happening: installed a few new parts,cap+ rotor and new coil,plugs wires, Tried starting the car but it did not fire,turned over nice and fast but no fire. So I had a look around the engine and noticed I had the distributor harness un plugged,so I plugged it in and tried to fire it up again thinking it should start now.
After a few seconds of cranking the engine, the starter instantly started turning very slow and erratic and that's when I noticed smoke from the engine bay,I discovered the small ground wire off the main battery ground was smoking. Now I'm curious if the dist. Being unplugged had anything to do with it,or if the starter can just go bad like that?

My next step I'm thinking just buy a new starter and cables and see what happens,anyone else have this problem?
Thanks

imp · Sep 23, 2017

KC802 said:
Car: 94 gt 5.0
Hi,looking for some help with a smoking battery cable,its the small neg cable on the battery.
Here's what's happening: installed a few new parts,cap+ rotor and new coil,plugs wires, Tried starting the car but it did not fire,turned over nice and fast but no fire. So I had a look around the engine and noticed I had the distributor harness un plugged,so I plugged it in and tried to fire it up again thinking it should start now.
After a few seconds of cranking the engine, the starter instantly started turning very slow and erratic and that's when I noticed smoke from the engine bay,I discovered the small ground wire off the main battery ground was smoking. Now I'm curious if the dist. Being unplugged had anything to do with it,or if the starter can just go bad like that?

My next step I'm thinking just buy a new starter and cables and see what happens,anyone else have this problem?
Thanks

Purpose of that small black ground wire is to ensure adequate grounding at the battery itself for the computer. If a poor connection between the battery main ground cable and it's ground point occurred, the small wire tried to carry part, or all, of the starter current. It's small size would have dropped a significant part of the voltage which should have been available at the starter, caused the wire to get very hot, and also was responsible for the starter slowing way down.

Best would be to replace the entire battery ground cable, making sure the replacement has the small wire factory-attached to the battery terminal. Make sure the small wire is grounded to shiny clean body metal, and the main heavy cable is properly tightened at it's far end, usually directly under a starter mounting bolt. imp

KC802 · Sep 23, 2017

Thanks alot for the info,iv been searching for a replacment cable online but dont see much for the 94, but alot for the 93-.
I was about to order a new starter but i will try just replacing the neg battery cable first.

General karthief · Sep 24, 2017

If your starter is old or of unlnpwn condition I would replace it to, the lack of voltage and heat associated shortens the life and stresses the battery.
JMO

KC802 · Sep 24, 2017

Couple pics

^ Thanks, thats what iv been thinking,replace both the + and - cables and install a new starter just to be on the safe side,my garage is attached to the house so a fire would not be cool lol.Im thinking about that sve i think its called? Starter From lmr.com
Iv owned the car for 3 months only drove it once back home after purchase,done pretty much every maint. Item i could think of,pretty pumped to actually get it road worthy and drive it.

KC802 · Sep 24, 2017

.....double post

General karthief · Sep 25, 2017

Get a starter from most any autoparts stor e with a lifetime guarantee
But stangnet members do get a discount from lmr, hit their button on the venders forums for the code.

KC802 · Oct 4, 2017

Hey guys,so i installed all brand new + and - cables,installed a new starter and im still having a weak crank and super hot
Small neg cable at the battery,any suggestions on where to go from here? Thanks for any input.

KC802 · Oct 4, 2017

Also I remember when I installed the main battery ground to the block on the timing cover,it didn't look so clean,I tried scuffing up the stud on the timing cover but it didn't help much.
Is there a better location than the timing cover for the neg battery ground,that's prob my entire issue but I'm not sure if/where to swap it to.

KC802 · Oct 4, 2017

SOLVED ****
But now another question from it lol. So it was barely turning over not firing hardly at all,re did the starter and battery cables,no help.
The problem was all the spark plug wires were off by one on the cap but I'm not sure if they were or not lol.
When I just recently installed new plugs and wires I looked up the firing order and it all seems to say start plugs 1 and 3 to the right of the dist cap clip. So I did that and had these problems. If I rotate all the wires on the cap counter clockwise by one the car fires right up.
SO....... is something off in my dist or should I run them 1 step counterclockwise from what I'm seeing searching google it says I'm off by one.

jozsefsz · Oct 4, 2017

Sounds like you super-advanced the timing by being off about 45 degrees. That could certainly cause some cranking problems, though that's so far out of whack I'm surprised you also weren't spitting fire out of the intake.

The relative position of the wires to the cap isn't meaningful, it's their position relative to the rotor that matters. Our cars are 20+ years old, no telling where things were aligned when a distributor was removed & replaced for example. Get yourself and old-fashioned timing light and adjust from there, you can assume that the position of the wires where it 'cranks and fires right up' is a lot closer than the other spot.

Brighter side, those are some nice looking wires & grounds now.

General karthief · Oct 4, 2017

Turn the engine over to tdc and see where the rotor points

KC802 · Oct 4, 2017

Karthief thanks I will do that and snap a pic

Joz thanks for the input,I'll pick up a timing light this weekend and give it a go.this is my first experience working on a car with this type of dist/ignition. And yeah I got all new grounds cleaned up,they were just painted over by prev owner lol and a new starter damn it,should run great once I get it sorted out. Thanks again

KC802 · Oct 4, 2017

Alright well i got it as close to tdc as i could,pulled the plug and used a pencil. The rotor is pretty much pointing to the cap clip and the #1 plug is about 2 spaces off it seems. So when i put the wires 1 off counter clockwise it was putting it closer to tdc and it actually started and ran. So pretty much my timing is way off causing it to only run when i move the plugs counter clockwise? Im pretty much a noob to v8s but i think i could tackle setting the timing correctly.. i hope lol.

94 Gt Smoking Battery Cable

KC802

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imp

Mustang Master

KC802

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General karthief

wonder how much it would cost to ship you a pair

KC802

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KC802

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General karthief

wonder how much it would cost to ship you a pair

KC802

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KC802

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KC802

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jozsefsz

General karthief

wonder how much it would cost to ship you a pair

KC802

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94 Gt Smoking Battery Cable

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