Electrical Woes, Part Deux

[Scott Buwalda]

Aight guys:

We are finishing up the complete interior build on my S14/RB26, but for kicks and giggles the other night, decided to finish up my power steering lines. I am tightening the high pressure eye bolt, and get a shock from the engine. *eek* I grab the multi-meter, and read DC volts at 0 VDC, and have continuity with chassis ground. Pop it over to AC volts, and when using my body as earth ground, I am seeing 50 VAC. When using the car's chassis, there's even some AC voltage present until is dissipates by the multi-meter creating a ground to chassis.

So, we connect the starter solenoid ground to chassis ground, and go to try and start the motor again. Still nothing. But this time, the 4 gauge wire from the battery to the starter solenoid gets REAL hot. Perhaps the starter's showing a dead short? But why would we be seeing AC voltage in the block? Bad rectifiers?

Scott

[Lucian_rider]

You didn't actually say if the engine was running at the time but if it was then the only explanasion would be the alternator rectifiers, at least one would have had to short out and let AC current go to ground.

Otherwise I would check for a cut extension cord or trailing light that you might have been using whilst working on the car.

Maybe you can give us a bit more info so that we might be able to come up with something more.