Resistor Wire

[chrismedders7913]

I ran into a problem with my resistor wire melting on my 1970 F100 360. I pulled up to a local store, and when I came back out and attempted to start my truck it would only turn over, briefly fire, then shut off and a small amount of smoke rolled out through the speaker port in the dash. After a pull tow home I spent many days on this forum trying to identify the culprit. I had installed a new radio and speaker into the dash a few weeks prior. I tried to crank the truck again and the same event occurred until it would no longer fire at all (ran the battery dead). These module trucks have a resistor wire that runs from the ignition switch to the firewall where it converts into the "hot" cable for the ignition coil. The resistor wire had become pinched in the speaker holder during the radio install, gotten to hot and melted the rubber and the wire touched metal. In the process of removing the wire it broke into multiple pieces. Somehow during the process once the wire arched it caused the starter solenoid to lock, draining the battery. I found this out as I put a new battery in the truck and attached the cables and it would try to crank itself (after resistor repair). Replaced the solenoid and all is well now.

Resistor repair. The wire says do not cut or spice but I temporarily did to check the circuit. I added a length of wire the same as the frayed, broken, and burnt wire. Once repaired that is when I found out about the solienoid.

Ultimately I plan to put in a PerTronix ignition and Flamethrower II after reading all the posts on here during my repair as this is obviously the best and safer option than a spliced resistor wire. I will also be cleaning up the plethora of wires under the dash for better organization as the harness has been manipulated many times over the lifetime of the vehicle.

Grateful for this forum as it helped in the resolution of my simple but complex problem.

Medders

[cep62]

Welcome to the site.
There is a lot of knowledge here , I'm glad you were helped.

[sargentrs]

from Georgia! Glad you got it figured out

[crazyhorse]

Mr Chris, to the best site period.

Hope you like it here.

Pull up a chair and stay awhile.

[lennyp]

from Massachusetts.