Neighbor rings my bell three time in rapid succession
I answer the door, what's up?
Your car is on fire!
whughwut?
your car's on fire!
Dam it sure is, cant open the hood neither so I yank the rekease cable HELLA HARD and that does it, opens up the hood and there is the fire on the battery and maf sensor and iac tube and radiator is toast, and the fuze box is krispy deep fried. I can fix it.

 

So I need the fuze box over by battery anyone got it for so so? or where can I get it for so so? junkyard maybe. And the maf and air filter and fan shroud. lots of little wires and circuits, I believe I can repair her.

 

The irony between your name and what happened is just too much LOL.

In all seriousness youll probably need to get a new harness. Maybe replace any hoses nearby. You pretty much got the gist of what you need. Sorry for your loss.

 

appropriate username OP

 

Lol...

 

what the hell? how does it randomly catch on fire? probably the battery?

 

My friend had a big house fire after his car got on fire in the middle of the night. Turned out to be something with the fuse box (guessing for the OP it was either fuse box or battery related)

 

My car started cranking over when I was trying to get the hood open, then horn started beeping as if in alarm mode. Was scary as hell and I thought it was going to explode as I was dumping water all over the bay and battery. I plan to go to junkyard and get a replacement fuse box and whatever else like hood cable and I plan to take battery to costco because it's only a few months old. I hope they replace it for free. It would be cool if they paid for the parts that I need but i can't prove that the battery was at fault. But look at the hood that burn is right above the battery.

 

Sorry about your ride.

I also looked at your screen name & then I had to read it again....

 

 

Damn so your gonna fix what burned and a little body work? Insurance companies will total it sadly.. But I mean the body looks good! Hate to see good looking cars go to waste when it needs little stuff to be done.. See it all the time!

 

Oh... man sorry to see this, really the part is you and the car are ok, and it can be fixed with patience and jy parts and some amounts of cash. I find it odd that your car resembles the screen name, that name was bad change it. The harness check with the local jy and the fuses and the radiator and the headlight sockets and ect. Sorry for the loss get it patched up run her again.

 

Really don't think it was the battery. Something must have shorted and caused excessive heat at the connections.

 

Yea you're probably right asand1 I was thinking the same thing.
Thank you all for your concern. And yeah my screenname does fit huh?
I will need:
Radiator, radiator upper hose
Fuse box/battery
wire harness patch from said fuse box
then I need to rewire a few miscelaneous wires near TB and TPS.
I really hope that this didn't mess up my ECU etc but I have another one if so.

 

Does it look like the battery posts shorted out on the hood?

 

IDK man. The insulation that attaches to the hood was all burned on that side.
This really blows. I was just about to do my brakes too.

 

My facial expressions regarding this thread:

Saw vague thread title --->

Prepared myself to open thread and observe another classic maxima.org hazing --->

Saw user name and realized that OP was not a newbie, and that I had been seeing Maximeltman on these boards for years now --->

Opened thread --->

I'm really sorry to see that this happened to you. I'm glad that you were not in the car and that you managed to put it out before the entire car was engulfed. Looks like you've invested a lot of time into her, I spy a 3.5 . I hope that you're successful in repairing this. You're a better man than I am for that; I would have had to say goodbye. I cringe at the thought of electrical / harness problems.

Best of luck, keep us updated.

 

Thanks Crime. Will do.

 

I stripped much of the wiring down today after work and came to find out that many of the wires in the big looms are the same color. It would be much simpler if each wire was different color but no such luck of course. mainly the loom going to the left wheel well so the body control loom. That is a ton of soldering.
The clutch master cylinder is kinda melted as well. I don't know what to do here boys. Total it or try to fix. The engine is less than 1500 miles has HR cams and pistons arp bolts all around. And I sold my cherry picker a month ago.
I'm gonna try to fix it. If anyone has any idea on the BCM loom wires being the same colors and trying to connect them without screwing it all up please chime in.

 

ur engine only has 1500 miles?? damn, when they rebuild the engine they didn't do anything to wiring did they? that could cause a fire..

 

No I rebuilt/installed myself and it has been great. takin another swing tomorrow.

 

I was able to go to the junkyard finaly and get replacement harness, I needed the whole harness that goes from passenger side to driver side via over the radiator.
My original car is a 99 mt, the donor harness came from a 98 auto.
The 99 mt had a clutch interlock relay, and the auto has a clutch inhibitor relay.
I did a bit of searching and some say they are the same thing, but idk for certain.
Can someone please chime in on this?
Can I just use the clutch inhibitor relay on the manual transmission that normally has the interlock?

 

The relays serve the same function, but the relays are different animals. The manual trans relay has one circuit inside it, while the auto trans relay has 2 circuits inside it. Because of this, the sockets the relays plug into are different and you can't swap the 2 different kinds or relays.

The extra circuit in the auto trans relay is used by the cruise control, to dis-engage the cruise control while cranking.

It is not a deal breaker. People that have converted their auto trans to manual have had to deal with it. But you will probably have to do some wiring modifications. The switch on the clutch pedal is used to energize the relay. In an auto trans car, the park/neutral switch does this. This is the wiring mod I think you will have to deal with.

 

Thanks Dennis.
I don't like this.
The new harness has a few more wires where I was going to solder it in under the driver wheel well. Particularly green/orange and green/yellow variety. I'm kind of hesitant because if I solder them in wrong what will that do?
There is a local guy on craigslist who, miraculously has a 99 mt Maxima and selling for cheap. It has a bad interior and needs a battery and new clutch. He basically won't be able to sell it and he is going to scrap it if it won't sell. I asked him if I could come by and just take that harness out and he's being a baby about it and all that. I even offered $100 and he still won't reply. He also asked me if i have a tow truck and I said I just have a bettery and he's all like it needs a clutch you can't move it without a clutch that's what makes it go and all that stuff. Like he's talking to a moron. the way he worded it on his cl add I just thought the clutch was slipping not toasted. If he scraps it I hope that the local junkyard will have it so I can just get it there but that will take a week or two I just want it now. So I'm going to post in the classifieds for one if anyone has one.

 

more karnage



cleaned up a bit 'new' auto harness in

 

im curious how the fire started at all in the first place? has ur insurance company say anything?

 

There is a member called Maxima_Joe who gets parts for cars. He calls himself the 4th Gen Parts King. Maybe he can get you a wire harness. pm him and ask.

 

@JoshG-I only had liability so no. Not sure how it started either.
@Dennis- Tanks...So weird, but the local guy who has the 99 mt for sale name is Joe as well, and I saved his name in my phone as Maxima Joe. That's pretty strange.
The real Maxima_Joe, is he still around these forums?

 

I gonna get the new-to-me harness from a 98 mt tomorrow..I'll post pics of how the install go.
Also got a sandblaster plug so i'm gon get the battery plate and coolant pipe sandblasted and the intake manifold and painted.

 

oooooo... I don't know about that. The 1999 had a bunch of electrical changes compared to the previous years. The relays are different in terms of location and quantity and wire colors are different for what is the same circuit.

I'm pessimistic on this, I think the 98 & 99 harnesses are not the same.

 

Oh no dont tell me that lol
I guess i'll find out.

 

I think I see your problem. The second pic in your OP looks like the positive batter cable comes up the side of your battery and loops back. I suspect the cable contacted the hood and wore through the insulation, causing a dead short of what ever your cranking amps was.

 

That's pretty good detective work but no. That 0ga cable was well taken care of and its rubber insulation never wore out but I think that the intense heat from the fire caused it to fray out like you see in that first or second pic. The hood release cable did the same thing, it was so hot it literally started snapping apart I'm very lucky that I was able to pop the hood with it before it snapped completely, I'm sure that the FD would have had to been called.

 

Do you have an hid kit? Xentec in particular? If so was ur ballast touching the battery in any way? And xentec hid kits have been known for electrical fires

Btw 98-99 engine harness is diff, a 98 harness pin outs are completely diff from a 99, they are not interchangeable

 

Idk about the ballast but a good possibility..
But the 98 automatic harness that I mentioned a few posts above would be less the relay for the clutch correct?

 

does it matter if i'm using a 95 ecu without nats?

 

When using a 95 ecu on a 99 you have to do the re-pin on the ecu,

Are you using a complete new harness or just tapping the new used harness into your existing harness?

 

Yea I been using that 95 ecu for almost two years so it's been re-pinned on the cps and cam sensor, whatever I did, it was so long ago lol!
I got a complete new harness. Been looking at the Haynes circuits charts comparing the 98 mt with the 99 mt, and looks like the main difference is the theft warning relay that's on the 95-98, the 99 dont have the theft warning relay. So in short I could bypass said relay and connect this brown/white wire that comes from fuse 33 to the green/black wire on the clutch interlock. I haven't seen anything else that needs to be rewired. If I'm missing anything chime in.

 

This is werking now I;ve been dippin around nicely. No way was I gonna let Maxine be torn apart and stripped down for parts. The clutch cant even handle the power in first gear. Gonna do brakes and clutch next. I;m just very happy it all works. On a 98 harness.