dead short?

[jilgar@hotma]

installed a battery in my 61' bambi, before hooking it up i thought i'd clean the and reattach one of the wires on the positive terminal that had come loose, in so doing, saw i had a loop of wire with a wire nut on the end and thought it must be something from the previous owner and removed it, i thightend the two wires on the positive and thightend the negitive and connected it. i whent inside and found that the exhust cieling fan worked just fine with the 12 volt battery installed. you must understand that this is the first time anything has been pluged in- in the twenty plus years i've owned this little beauty ! i also changed the end of the 110 volt cord as it had an old time v shaped negitive ground on the three prong and this was plugged in at this same time.. the problem started when i unpluged the four prong thingee and the green wire onthe positive leed started smoking, all the insulation melted instantly, i was able to dissconnect the battery cable quickly and was left with my melted wire. i guess the question is obvious and would love to know where i went wrong and maybe what do i do now... any advice would be much appreiciated. thanks, gary dunn

[uwe]

Originally Posted by jilgar@hotma

installed a battery in my 61' bambi, before hooking it up i thought i'd clean the and reattach one of the wires on the positive terminal that had come loose, in so doing, saw i had a loop of wire with a wire nut on the end and thought it must be something from the previous owner and removed it, i thightend the two wires on the positive and thightend the negitive and connected it. i whent inside and found that the exhust cieling fan worked just fine with the 12 volt battery installed. you must understand that this is the first time anything has been pluged in- in the twenty plus years i've owned this little beauty ! i also changed the end of the 110 volt cord as it had an old time v shaped negitive ground on the three prong and this was plugged in at this same time.. the problem started when i unpluged the four prong thingee and the green wire onthe positive leed started smoking, all the insulation melted instantly, i was able to dissconnect the battery cable quickly and was left with my melted wire. i guess the question is obvious and would love to know where i went wrong and maybe what do i do now... any advice would be much appreiciated. thanks, gary dunn

Gary,

It does sound like a dead short, as you mentioned. You will have to trace that wire and find out where it is going to ground. My 63 had a very limited 12V system, mostly some lights, one fan, and one battery. No converter etc. Many of the light fixtures were 120V/12V combination fixtures.
You can put a light bulb in line between the wire and the battery and then follow the burned wire and disconnect stuff until the light goes out. Or, just rewire the 12V system as much as possible. Fortunately, it's a small trailer, should be esy to find the problem. I am located in Orange, and would be happy to help if you can drag the little jewel over here.