smoking neg battery cable?

[86chevyk20]

SO i finaly put my k20 on the road today and when i took it for its first spin i died about 3 miles down the road. towed it back to my shop and went to start it again and the starter trys to turn over and makes a wiining noise and the neg. battery cable smokes. could the starter be bad?? is it possible the headers cooked the starter??/ no sure where to begin. the guage stated that the battery was fully charged but when trying to turn over the engine it drops to under 8.


please help


Liam

 

[wildcatjason]

Pull the positive cable out and place a voltmeter between the battery post and the cable. If there is a reading you have a short. Then you will have to find the short by pulling wires until that reading goes away. Otherwise are your cables different sizes? That will change the amperage your negative can handle. If your positive is larger then the negative or if you have a cable that is smaller anywhere (ie more then one cable linked together) it will increase resistance. The extra amps will have no where to go but fry it. Just some thoughts.

 

[HotRodPC]

Yeah, make sure cables are right, and ground is good. If you're still having the problem, then starter is bad. It's drawing to much or more resistance the cables can tolerate. To many amps and dropping your voltage. I'd almost say it is the starter since you mention the whining, but it is still possible the cables aren't right as said above, and if your power supply isn't supplying enough for the starter to function properly. Kinda like a good woman, if you got so lucky enough, even a good starter will bitch and moan if you don't give it enough.