1990 Suburban Starter stuck burnt wire
 

:scare2:

So I have a 1990 suburban 6.2 NA diesel. I fired up the truck after it sat for about 2 weeks just to let it run as we have not had a chance to drive it or clean it out since our camping trip.

after about 1 minute of starting it the starter re-engaged and started cranking the running engine. I quickly shut off the key and it kept on rolling the engine over. so i quickly unhooked the batteries. My friend came over and we had a look (batteries unhooked) at the ignition switch and the neutral safety switch. we did not visually find any issues. With the ignition switch unplugged the truck was still trying to crank over.

we then went under the truck and wiggled the starter harness and tried again and the truck did not try to crank but we found that there was an arc in a harness behind the engine. I have since gone under the truck to look and found that the red wire going to the starter is broken. It looks like it over heated and perhaps melted the coating and then the arcing burnt through the rest of the wire :humm:

has anyone dealt with this before? my friend is coming back this weekend to see what we can find. Could this be the starter? why did the wire burn and not the fuse-able link? do i need a starter? will I have to worry about the truck going up in smoke? I need to get it up and running so I can clean it up and put it away for the winter.

thanks in advance :argh:

Well with some help from a friend we discovered it was not a burnt wire... Or perhaps it was after.

It looks like a purple and red starter wire tubed each other and eventually wore the coating off. The touched and engaged the starter. I guess while wiggling the harness while under the truck trying to make sense of the situation we moved the wires apart. The red wire came in contact with the engine or firewall and when we re connected the batteries it arced and melted.

We since repaired the harness and I was able to dirve the truck around to various place to have it cleaned and peeped and put away for the winter. Hope all is well come spring again