stdyhand

Well I ran into a problem today. I was leaving from work and decided to have a little fun on the way home or blow off a little steam.

I was leaving a stop sign and spinning the rear tires. I had just shifted to second when the whole car died and I saw smoke coming from under the hood and from under the dash.

Naturally I killed the ignition right away and coasted to the side. I immediately popped the hood and saw smoke coming from the driver side by the battery/solenoid area. The smoke however was subsiding since the ignition was off now. After feeling around and grabbing the ground wire from the battery and burning the chit out of myself it lead me to the problem.

My battery has larger terminals that the previous owner had put on, likely to power additional accessories, and I noticed that the battery had shifted or slid just a hair to the driver side and was allowing the positive battery terminal to arc against the hood. It was evident by the black burn stains on the underside of the hood.

I temporarily remedied the problem by placing a piece of rubber over the terminal to stop it from arcing. I don't see any wiring burnt completely through; however, the car randomly revs to about 1500 rpm now. It is very random. I see no pattern to it. The problem did seem to improve some after driving it home.

Is there anything I should check, specifically, after a problem like this?

What do you suppose would cause the idle to randomly rev up on its own?

The fact there was smoke from under the dash is what concerns me. I glanced under the dash and didn't see any burnt wires and I managed to drive it home without any further smoking wires but my concern is since there was smoke under the dash there could be an exposed wire somewhere and it's not easy to get under the dash on this thing.

Bubba 95SN

As unpleasant as it may be it is time to check wires going to ignition switch and have a very close inspection of all wires. Just time, maybe some wire.