What Did I Do to Kill My '55 (And What's The Fix?)
 

I'm kind of stumped. Have a '55 Victoria that's been modified with a 289/C4 in place of the 272/FOM, and rewired with a custom loom for 12v with alternator that has a later-model blade-style fuse block. The car still uses the original neutral safety switch on the shifter column in the engine bay. Last Saturday I finally had a chance to get it started and let it idle for a while to burn off some older gas. When I went to put it into reverse I goosed the throttle, chirped the tires, then it stalled. Went to hit the ignition switch and - Nothing - no power to solenoid, no power to lights when I pulled on the light switch...nothing. Checked the battery connection (posts/terminals were tight), but no juice. Put the battery into my '63 T-bird and it turned over with no problem. Pushed the car back into the barn and walked away, so I haven't started to trace down what happened and why there's no juice flowing. What did I do to kill the entire electrical system? Is it possible that I fried the ignition switch, or should I be looking for something else?

Re: What Did I Do to Kill My '55 (And What's The Fix?)
 

You need to start with the basics. Check the battery connection to the starter solinoid, to the engine and to the body. Take them apart and look them over good even if you did it when it was modified. You should have a ground from the battery to the engine block, from the engine block to the body and from the engine block to the chassis. The connection to the ignition and head light switch is next. Not sure how the wires were run and where in the runs the fuse block is so we are shooting into the tree hoping to hit something. For it all to go bad at once something basic failed. 12V systems actually draw less current then a 6V system does. I am going to assume all the end users were changed over to 12V?

Re: What Did I Do to Kill My '55 (And What's The Fix?)
 

My money is on the large wire that runs from the batt side of the starter solenoid to the headlight switch. (It would have been a #8AWG yellow wire on the original harness). This wire is much larger than all the other wires in the harness, dwarfed only by the battery cables. That wire supplies all the power to the control panel. There is a jumper wire from the same headlight terminal that runs to the ignition switch. If that wire (running from solenoid to headlight switch) is toast, you are dead in the water.

Re: What Did I Do to Kill My '55 (And What's The Fix?)
 

You stated you have a custom wire loom. does it have a Maxi Fuse or fusable link?? You will lose power if it popped and/or melted. of course you will have to determine why it popped before replacing it.

Incase you are not sure what I am referring to, this is the Maxi-Fuse on my '55. 50 Amps. All power goes thru it first, then to fuse block.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8447/7...c02eee00_z.jpg

Re: What Did I Do to Kill My '55 (And What's The Fix?)
 

Thanks for the responses. Wiring loom was custom-made from scratch by a street rodding buddy when we were in college in the early '80s - I don't remember if we put a fusible link or in-line fuse in between the solenoid and the ignition switch (I don't think we did). Adding one now seems like a good idea. Checking the heavy-gauge wire from the solenoid to the ignition switch and to the light switch will be the first things I'll need to check after going through the grounds. When we rewired the car we abandoned the 8 ga wire in place and ran a new 10 ga wire from the solenoid to the ignition switch; we also abandoned in place the voltage regulator wiring and ran new wiring to the alternator VR which we located under the heater blower bracket. Last year I had to change out the starter solenoid, and the ignition switch was changed out 4 years ago.

As for grounding, right now I have the negative battery cable going to the front of the passenger side exhaust manifold (not a good idea, I know). I don't believe I have a ground from engine to body or from engine to frame, and since I haven't had issues before, why bother?

Quality time with a test light, jumper wires and multimeter are in store for me this coming Sunday.

Re: What Did I Do to Kill My '55 (And What's The Fix?)
 

Alan I thought the same thing (why bother?) when I built my street rod until one night at a gas stop going to the Nats in MN a fellow rodder I was running with ran up and said "your car is on fire!", turns out it wasn't but, the grounds in the motor mounts were not doing their jod and the exhaust system and hangers were the actual ground to the chassis. After fixing the grounds the engine cranked over faster, the LED turn/hi beam indicators stopped dimly flashing and the volt gauge and voltage regulator behaved as would be expected.

Ya, the ground on the exhaust is less then ideal. My personal favorite is to the starter bolt or an unused boss on the side of the block. There is probably a ground to the body at the back of the engine to the fire wall, one of those woven straps, and the motor mount should have a strap impregnated in the rubber to ground the block to the chassis. (Not too sure about the new replacement stuff as those in my 36 did not have a ground in them and they are stock replacement SBF mounts from the Zone.)

Re: What Did I Do to Kill My '55 (And What's The Fix?)
 

sure sounds like the ground is bad---but---some of these old headlite switches had a fuse on top of the switch, maybe??

Re: What Did I Do to Kill My '55 (And What's The Fix?)
 

Quick update - got under the dash this morning and pulled the headlight switch fuse. Sure as heck, it was blown. Have to get to a parts store and find a 9-amp fuse and put it in tomorrow. Will post an update with results.

Re: What Did I Do to Kill My '55 (And What's The Fix?)
 

Update: I got a little time in the car tonight. Replaced 9 amp fuse at rear of headlight switch - no dash lights, no headlights, no turn signals, no power seat. Horn works, though and when I jump the terminals at the solenoid it will turn over. However I managed to break the lead from the ignition switch to the in-line fuse holder for the turn signal power feed. Gave up for the night after that. Am suspecting more and more that I fried the ignition switch but still have to run jumper wire, test light and multimeter checks.

Re: What Did I Do to Kill My '55 (And What's The Fix?)
 

If you have no headlights, the problem is not your ignition switch. It would appear that you have a problem with the connection on the headlight switch from the battery - the big yellow wire. This is also where the power is picked up for the ignition and other circuits. It does seem strange that you have a horn working though. The other connection to check is where the yellow wire is connected to the solenoid though the fact that you can crank by shorting the terminals would suggest that this connection is solid.
Without being there to see what your friend did when he made your custom mods to the wiring, it s hard to say what he has done and whatis wrong.
A test light and multimeter look like being your friend for a while.
Regards

Re: What Did I Do to Kill My '55 (And What's The Fix?)
 

Saturday update:
Long story short - haven't checked the wire between the ignition and light switches yet, but visual inspection doesn't seem to show any melted wiring at the light or ignition switches. However I do realize I need to check for power from the battery to the light switch, and from the light switch to the ignition switch.

In order to repair the wire for the turn signal feed from the ignition switch, I decided to go ahead and drop the ignition switch to remove the orange/blue wire so I can repair the fuse pigtail on the workbench. And since the speedometer head was not clamped into place, plus the radio, speaker/grille, clock and glove box are currently out of the dash, I can get to the light switch and wiring through the opening for the speedometer head. But I couldn't get one of the two screws out to move the emergency brake bracket out of the way to make it easier to get to the ignition switch from the underside.

Since I already have a new ignition switch on the shelf, I thought I would swap it out and see if it takes care of the no-start/no-lights problem. Or so I thought - I pulled the key cylinder out of the old switch and went to insert it into the new one, but for some darn reason it won't drop in. When the key is aligned so that the pin at the top rear of the cylinder drops in order to slide the cylinder into the switch body, the tang in the back of the key cylinder appears to be 90-degrees out of phase with the corresponding slot in the new switch, and I can't get the key/cylinder to rotate to drop into the slot and seat the cylinder in the switch body. I must be doing something wrong here. Any thoughts?

Re: What Did I Do to Kill My '55 (And What's The Fix?)
 

I agree with Rick. Pretty hard to diagnose your problem with a "custom wiring loom". Did you guys even use the original color code and wire it as original?? Did you make up a wiring diagram of your custom loom?

Only suggestion I have is get a good volt/ohm meter and start tracing...

Hope you find your problem(s).

Re: What Did I Do to Kill My '55 (And What's The Fix?)
 

Update: finally got an afternoon/evening to try swapping out the ignition switch, trace wires and checking for continuity. I was getting power from the battery to the starter solenoid, but not from the solenoid to the ignition switch, plus not getting power to lights, either. Took wires off the starter solenoid and ignition switch to check for continuity: wire from "I" terminal of solenoid to "IGN" terminal of switch has continuity, as does wire from "S" terminal of solenoid to "S" terminal of switch.

The original heavy yellow wire from starter solenoid to ignition switch was replaced in the custom harness with a heavy red wire, and another heavy red wire in the same harness runs from the ignition switch to somewhere I haven't figured out yet (I want to think it goes to the alternator). I tried to check continuity from starter solenoid end to ignition switch end by jumpering the ends to the multimeter probes and with the dial set to check ohms/resistance, got a '1' reading meaning open circuit/break. I also tried to place a test light between the wire and ignition switch: no light = no power, but I'm not sure I had everything hooked up correctly, i.e. solenoid not bolted/grounded to fender apron, switch set to ACC or IGN positions. So I want to try checking this wire again before I cut the loom open and replace it.

Since I currently don't have a heavy gauge yellow wire running to the ignition switch from the starter solenoid, I'll be getting a roll of yellow 10 gauge tomorrow and fabricate a bypass/jumper to see if this gets me power to the ignition switch and lights: if this works, replacement of the red wire will be in order to replicate the factory wiring diagram more closely.

I'm scratching my head as to how this wire would just up and fail - once I cut the loom open and pull the wire out I may figure it out, but for now I just want to get things working again.

Re: What Did I Do to Kill My '55 (And What's The Fix?)
 

Think I asked before, did you put a fusable link in this wire. May explain "how this wire would just up and fail"...

Re: What Did I Do to Kill My '55 (And What's The Fix?)
 

Some of these old cars and trucks used a circuit breaker on the key switch that would open and not reset. Amp gauges would open up and cause an immediate lack of power. Right now you're just guessing where you might have power and where you don't. Test light is easy to use or the DC v function on your multimeter. Either will tell you where you have power and where you don't. Fuse box by chance? Follow that red wire from the solenoid and find out where it ends, both of them. Check for power, not continuity. Electrical problems are an exercise in logic, not guessing. Without an accurate diagram of where and how it was wired you need to trace the wire and the power, step by step

Re: What Did I Do to Kill My '55 (And What's The Fix?)
 

I agree wholeheartedly with Dave72dt. Usually the first thing I do with electrical problems is pull out all the modifications to the original harness that so called experts install. I have seen cars with up to four wires feeding power to the ignition from various sources with junctions of twisted wire, tape and connectors.
You say you installed a heavy red wire in the past and are assuming it goes to the ignition switch. If it does it should have power on it which can be checked with a meter or test light probe.
It is possible that your connection has failed at the solenoid. An easy way to check that you have power coming from this connection is to strip a little of the insulation off about three inches from the solenoid and see you have power there. Do you still have the original wiring connected to the same solenoid post. I would think you don't.
Use the stripping method further along the red wire to see if you have power.
I would doubt that the wire is broken, it is more likely to be a loose or corroded connection somewhere.
Regards