Veteran
Posts: 210
Location: Suwanee, GA | I've always wondered why so many people feel the need to carry one in their car... until this Tuesday when I managed to set my 62 Chrysler on fire. I had rebuilt the carb over the weekend, installed it Tuesday, went for a drive, and when I came back home the car was making a ticking noise. Saw smoke at the cowl and opened the hood to see a sizable flame down by the starter. The emergency brake cable was on fire. Fortunately, as a precaution I had lowered the tailgate window before venturing out as I had a brand new fire extinguisher in the rear footwell area (it was a requirement for a car show I entered a couple of years ago). It took the entire bottle to put it out, and I didn't think it was going to do it. Doused it with water afterwards.
Until now I had no idea the main, heavy gauge starter cable on this car is always hot, and that there's a separate lead and relay to energize the starter when turning the key to start. Turns out the brake cable where it comes out of the firewall and loops around down to the transmission was not secured to the inner fender as it should be, allowing the cable to droop and contact the main starter cable stud/nut. This ticking sound must have been from the arcing, and it may have just happened then as I was able to set the parking brake as normal before getting out of the car. Only real damage other than taking a few years off my life was melting the plastic or whatever the parking brake cable is encased in and now the cable is locked down.
Question: Looking at the shop manual, there's a retainer for the cable on the inside of the car at the firewall. It's embedded into the firewall insulation. Is this a clip-on retainer such that if I remove the large nut on the end of the cable I can yank/pry on it from the engine side to remove it? I don't want to damage the insulation to figure this out.
Thanks,
Robert
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