Guest FrantiC Report post Posted October 19, 2009 I've been quoted over $1000 to fix my e30's wiring mess, where various wires have melted their way to the fuse box. So far noted the green ignition wire, a wire for the reverse lioght wiring, and another looped wire in the main loom are the only ones spotted so far. All I can do now is either fix the wiring myself, spend hours tracing the wires through the loom, take it all apart and replace what needs to be replaced. Without knowing the cause, it could all happen again. Or for all I know, not even do anything. I am not going to pay anyone to fix the wiring, at $1000+ potentially that is just not the way to go for me... What should I do ? I'm thinking I could buy an e30 shell, With all wiring intact and transplant everything over and start like that, with a clean slate of wiring. I mean, my car has Everything like headlights, interior, grills, doors trim etc etc, m-tech2, diff, suspension. All I would need is a bare mint e30 shell to start with. Or I call it quits, cut my losses. Leave this all to someone who has the time and money to go on with this project and have fun with the 2.7 I spent months building and drove around maybe 20-30km like it should have been! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kaz 64 Report post Posted October 19, 2009 Do you have the time to do it yourself? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
*Glenn* 854 Report post Posted October 19, 2009 If you start again with a new chassis and make all the mistakes you have made before...your probably going to end up with the same result. Start again by all means... but you must do more research and be more carefull and do things a little more professionaly.. or maybe as you say... just call it quits. No offence intended by this post either Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest FrantiC Report post Posted October 19, 2009 Do you have the time to do it yourself? Not really. I spent 3 days on off taking the dash and associated pieces out. On to carpet next too and as much of the fuse box as I can get at to see the full extent of damage done. If you start again with a new chassis and make all the mistakes you have made before...your probably going to end up with the same result. Start again by all means... but you must do more research and be more carefull and do things a little more professionaly.. or maybe as you say... just call it quits. No offence intended by this post either I don't wanna sound like a loser, but most of the wiring mess was the owner before me. There is ALOT of dodgy wiring which I ain't keen to sort through. There is half a alarm or something wire loom in there, Someones added a mini fuse box and wired the AC blower motor differently. A beepy buzzer thingy when the headlights are left on. The ONLY wiring I need to do if I had a new shell (assuming it is manual) would be the power for the ECU. Everything else is just plug and play for the motor.. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
westy 614 Report post Posted October 19, 2009 Can you get another loom? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest FrantiC Report post Posted October 19, 2009 Can you get another loom? Do you think that is possible? Never actually thought of that. Hmmmm. Anyone else chime in with that though? Loom is all one , from back lights to front, right? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Silver Fox 43 Report post Posted October 19, 2009 It's not all one, it unplugs in some places,from memory it may be 3 parts? The front lights etc are separate. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest FrantiC Report post Posted October 19, 2009 It's not all one, it unplugs in some places,from memory it may be 3 parts? The front lights etc are separate. Sweet, If the fronts separate that kinda helps. Anyone happen to have an e30 loom liying around lol.. I'm guessing most wreckers would cut the loom up getting stuff out etc. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest FrantiC Report post Posted October 19, 2009 This little loop wire here is the one that keeps burning when the key is flicked into the ON position. I tried again and you hear it sizzling away. WTF is it ? Doesn't look standard, but then again how do you tell when it's completely melted away. Anyways, I thought I'd be cool and cut it like this. And now the car can stay in the on position without anything burning at all. But most importantly the biggest gain from snipping that wire, the car now cranks over again! I still don't have the balls to plug the ECU back in though.. I'm going to repair the ignition wire and leave the reverse lights unplugged for now. Dismantle the fuse box tomorrow morning see if anything under there is burnt out 1st. Make sure all the lights and everything else works correctly and try repair the reverse lights mess. If it's going to be this straight forward then what am I thinking hah.. May aswell give this a shot. Here is a few shots of the weird wiring in my e30.. Don't even know what these are for.. But they wire into my ignition wires... Burned ignition wire.. lol at the externally wired power wire for the A/C blower.. nice tape up job left there. Buzzer thingy for the headlights. The wiring for the buzzer thingy, messy as. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
laadeelaa 0 Report post Posted October 19, 2009 Looks like an alarm was there. Possibly a dynatron (all black wires with little white numbers?) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nobimmer 694 Report post Posted October 19, 2009 Pay Mike with some beer and some head and Im sure he'd be able to do it for you. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest FrantiC Report post Posted October 19, 2009 Pay Mike with some beer and some head and Im sure he'd be able to do it for you. Haha. Who's mike? I'm gonna try myself actually.. Till I get stuck again.. Ditching the coils to go back to a distributor setup as I don't need it, this way I have less wiring to deal with and only need to use 1 coil driver with my ECU... More likely to run this way aswel, Instead of the fail coils I am using. Someone sell me the motronic ignition parts please! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
laadeelaa 0 Report post Posted October 19, 2009 Pay Mike with some beer and some head and Im sure he'd be able to do it for you.Ashkan! Haha.He actually would secretly like to be paid with taste good girly KGB's. Haha sorry John. He's Synthe. I'll see what I can do for you. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
323e30 0 Report post Posted October 19, 2009 Pay Mike with some beer and some head and Im sure he'd be able to do it for you. Haha High 5! I could do it no worries and the 1000$ quote is a joke really, it only takes one person 2 days to remove a complete e30 fuse box and wiring and replace with another full loom and to reconnect to engine loom. theres not much involved with this that would need a pro to do it. I could prob do it in a day but you would need to tow the car to auckland. bit of a long haul.... Ild start by removing all the non factory wires that are in your images, just re match the colors where they have been cut. you will have to trace the burnt wires back and replace them so they dont short to earth or to any other wires (this is the annoying and time consuming part) as when the wire burn they melt through good wires causing more shorts. Hopefully theres not too much damage to be found .. fingers crossed. if it is starting to look too damaged I can arrange a full loom and try my best to label it so you can put it back in yourself. its pretty strait forward but you will need patients its not a job you want to rush or attempt short cuts on. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest FrantiC Report post Posted October 19, 2009 (edited) Haha High 5! I could do it no worries and the 1000$ quote is a joke really, it only takes one person 2 days to remove a complete e30 fuse box and wiring and replace with another full loom and to reconnect to engine loom. theres not much involved with this that would need a pro to do it. I could prob do it in a day but you would need to tow the car to auckland. bit of a long haul.... Ild start by removing all the non factory wires that are in your images, just re match the colors where they have been cut. you will have to trace the burnt wires back and replace them so they dont short to earth or to any other wires (this is the annoying and time consuming part) as when the wire burn they melt through good wires causing more shorts. Hopefully theres not too much damage to be found .. fingers crossed. if it is starting to look too damaged I can arrange a full loom and try my best to label it so you can put it back in yourself. its pretty strait forward but you will need patients its not a job you want to rush or attempt short cuts on. Nah no way, Done enough damage already to rush through and try fix it. Won't be putting the ECU back in til I trace through all the wires after I remove the carpet and trace all wires back to the fusebox make sure it's only the 3 wires I have found so far. I still need to trace back the reverse light wire, it seems to be burnt down far and goes under the carpet so I need to pull that out and go from there. Thing is, the car was wired from an auto ages ago so I hope I don't muck around the wiring and it fails to start because of that (dunno if it applies with the megasquirt ECU?). However, I do require the motronic ignition parts. PM me please if anyone has these. I've decided the Wasted spark is not worth the hassle or having 3 coils. When it WAS running before I swapped clusters out, the engine was running on 4 cylinders as I figured that out by unplugging a coil and it kept running the same. I didn't try rectify it though, I let it sit to try swap clusters... I do however have the wrong sparkplugs in there, but I bought a new set of BPR7ES cold plugs to put in there anyways as the BPR6ES wouldnt let it boost properly. Edited October 19, 2009 by FrantiC Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest FrantiC Report post Posted October 19, 2009 (edited) Good and bad news with this.. The good, I have found the cause off it when I saw this: That is the stock +12V wire for the coil in the motronic 1.3 harness, It is used to provide power to my coils. Upon abit of investigating I have pierced the power on one of the coils with the mounting screw, which screws into the metal backing plate, which is attached to the chassis... So basically I shorted the coil +12V to the chassis (probably when I removed the coils and checked the connections where plugged into the back of them). The bad... It's melted from all the way through the engine harness through the c101 connector, through the fusebox to the ignition.. (Atleast I think it travels to the ignition, yet to check that) And the reverse light wire also has melted through to the fusebox. Other than that, I have traced and checked wiring in other places and that is all I have found. Need to unwind the looms make sure these wires haven't melted anything else now. Finished for today though.. Here is my ignition wiring fix. Also removed the taped up blower motor and soldered/heatshrinked it. Used the mini fuse box for the 12V taken off the ignition wire for ECU power to add a fuse for that too.. I hate wiring... Lol. But DIY labour is free so it's saving me alot of $$$.. So it better all work lol @ my resizing photo fail. hehehe. Edited October 19, 2009 by FrantiC Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bellicose 9 Report post Posted October 19, 2009 (edited) See mate, a bit of patience and you can sort it Edited October 19, 2009 by bellicose Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CamB 48 Report post Posted October 19, 2009 Looks like you're getting there... at least you'll know how the car's wired when you're done! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ashy_aye 3 Report post Posted October 19, 2009 if your up in auckland i have a compleate loom you can have. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hotwire 352 Report post Posted October 26, 2009 Good and bad news with this.. The good, I have found the cause off it when I saw this: That is the stock +12V wire for the coil in the motronic 1.3 harness, It is used to provide power to my coils. Upon abit of investigating I have pierced the power on one of the coils with the mounting screw, which screws into the metal backing plate, which is attached to the chassis... So basically I shorted the coil +12V to the chassis (probably when I removed the coils and checked the connections where plugged into the back of them). The bad... It's melted from all the way through the engine harness through the c101 connector, through the fusebox to the ignition.. (Atleast I think it travels to the ignition, yet to check that) And the reverse light wire also has melted through to the fusebox. Other than that, I have traced and checked wiring in other places and that is all I have found. Need to unwind the looms make sure these wires haven't melted anything else now. Finished for today though.. Here is my ignition wiring fix. Also removed the taped up blower motor and soldered/heatshrinked it. Used the mini fuse box for the 12V taken off the ignition wire for ECU power to add a fuse for that too.. I hate wiring... Lol. But DIY labour is free so it's saving me alot of $$$.. So it better all work lol @ my resizing photo fail. hehehe. John, Keep in mind when chasing the burnt wiring - a short will always burn from it's problem cause - back to it's source - ulimately power source (battery) but will generally run out at the next bigger wire up the line, eg, in this case - main ign feed from the switch. Obviously the smaller wire burns out first. Auxillary circuits are all factory fused so if this wiring is burnt - things have been bypassed OR this wiring is burnt externally from sitting next to problem melting wire in the loom. If you need any help - PM me Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest FrantiC Report post Posted October 26, 2009 (edited) It's allgood mate. Spent all week and alot of the long weekend sorting it out, running new wiring and figuring out the ignition circuit and made my own wiring now and it is working sweet as. I now have the car running again with a dizzy and single coil, Though the idle is rough as hell and sounds like it's idling on 4 cylinders. Though it drives and boosts sweet. The issue was I had pinched a power wire when mounting to the coil, the screw pinched the power wire and shorted it to ground. The power came from the stock +12V for the motronic coil, so that wire shorted and burnt all the way back to the ignition. I figured out all it was used for was straight from the ignition to the coil anyways, so i ran it through a fuse and straight to the coil through the engine wiring loom hole. Edited October 26, 2009 by FrantiC Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Forrest 35 Report post Posted October 26, 2009 ^ Well done John, good to see you saved the beast within Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest FrantiC Report post Posted October 26, 2009 ^ Well done John, good to see you saved the beast within Yes, Only problem is the stupid instrument cluster plugged in stops the car from starting. Something to do with the relays and unloader relay that controls the startermotor. Didn't have time to finish it today, But I have confirmed all other electrics are working as they should and most importantly the motor is running again. Just gotta figure the rough idle out now lol. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
