shorting out, melting wires... HELP!

Facts: '50 CJ3A, Buick 231, HEI.

I have some questions, but let me begin with what happened. I was up in the woods driving around and my buddy and I parked to take some pictures of a view. Like 5 minutes go by and we hear a spark sound and see smoke coming from my jeep. We run over and throw up the hood to find my hot wire that goes from my starter solenoid to my amp gauge was burned through (in half, and all rubber melted off it). So I got towed home.

My question, what all of a sudden would cause this to short out? My jeep has been fine since I put the motor in a year ago. I have replaced the wire, and as soon as I touch the positive battery cable to the battery, It starts to melt it again. For fun I put in a new starter and solenoid to see if that helped. It did not.

Any tips or other things to check out would be greatly appreciated!

 

From my experience ampmeters are nothing but trouble. id disconnect it and try again or just test for a short. perhaps you left the key on? I dont know if that would cause it to burn up but possibly

 

thanks all for the help! I figured it out... finally. My ampmeter was grounding out against the dash. The wires going through it had no insulators between them and the bracket that holds the gauge in. So my whole ampmeter was "hot" and basically burning itself to the inside of the dash. Oldness took it's toll on this one. But we are up and running. Thanks again.

 

Glad you found the problem without burning up the Willys. You should include a fusible link in your replacement wire, right at the starter or a high amp circut breaker in the line. Potential for a LOT of amps on an unprotected circut. This is what I use:

 

That is a great idea, any local parts store have that? What exactly is that called you have there?

 

MRCB=marine rated circut breaker. A lot of suppliers, including BlueSea but best price I have found is Waytec

http://order.waytekwire.com/scatego... Protection/?gclid=COnJ3L6ypqkCFQI3gwod8DFuvA

The one in the pis is:
http://order.waytekwire.com/productdetail2/M50/46873/MARINE CIRCUIT BREAKER 120A/

I picked the 120A to cover the alternator output that also feeds through that lead, which is 6 ga wire. As a side benefit, if you manually trip it, it shuts down the electrical system which makes the vehicle a bit difficult to jump start and steal if you place it where it is not easily accessible by someone not familiar with the vehicle.