Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi all, Total newbie here.
Had a bit of 'an event' the other day Involving a live battery cable contacting a cable from the bulkhead, resulting in a lot of burning plastic smoke filling the cabin, mainly from the driver side windscreen heater slot! Whole car now stinks (plus the whole garage)
Has anyone seen this before? See pictures, (what I can only presume as a mod, as no pictures I can find show Two cables coming from the Bulkhead.
1964 1000. The switch/pull knob obviously doesn't work now as the cable burnt through.
Does it look like someone has used a choke cable with a heater pull knob attached to achieve this?
Sod, How do you post pictures ?

https://1drv.ms/i/c/331664b2b81bf6e9/ER ... Q?e=uu4ZGC[/url]

https://1drv.ms/i/c/331664b2b81bf6e9/Eb ... A?e=7xIMlc
https://1drv.ms/i/c/331664b2b81bf6e9/EQ ... Q?e=4dQ8PD
https://1drv.ms/i/c/331664b2b81bf6e9/EQ ... Q?e=bc7Hm0

As you say, the battery live connection has contacted the heater cable. This appears to be because somebody has fitted the battery incorrectly - probably while changing the vehicle polarity - so the battery posts are now at the front of the battery instead of the rear? At the same time, the heater cable seems to have moved position as well. Such things do need to be kept apart
Unfortunately these things happen when people work on cars without thinking a job through first or asking for advice.
You need to keep anything metal away from the live battery terminal!!!!
Personally I would get yourself a new battery where the terminals are in the correct position
Good luck with the car. You've done the right thing now by asking for help. Lucky you didn't have a proper fire!
Hopefully it should be a fairly simple fix.

these might not be original or even pretty but have a look on ebay or amazon at battery post covers, cheap as chips and could save you from a bad car fire,

or turn the battery round.....

The heater control cable is in the wrong place. It is obviously a "user" addition. It is a bizarre modification because the "push for heater" knob assembly comes with a bracket for mounting below the dashboard. The heater valve is the standard cable operated valve.

I would suggest looking at cars with the later square heater as standard and fitting the cable correctly. ESM sell the complete assembly, knob, cable and bracket.

Stephen

ManyMinors wrote: ↑Fri Sep 13, 2024 1:33 pm As you say, the battery live connection has contacted the heater cable. This appears to be because somebody has fitted the battery incorrectly - probably while changing the vehicle polarity - so the battery posts are now at the front of the battery instead of the rear? At the same time, the fix.

Steve Phillips wrote: ↑Fri Sep 13, 2024 1:52 pm these might not be original or even pretty but have a look on ebay or amazon at battery post covers, cheap as chips and could save you from a bad car fire,

or turn the battery round.....

Yes, clearly the car has been converted to Neg Earth at some point either while having this Battery or another.
The polarity could have been changed decades ago, and subsequent owners have just changed like-for-like out of ignorance of how things were originally or should be for simple safety...

Just as making such a modification in the first place show a lack of understanding or electrical safety on cars.

mogser wrote: ↑Fri Sep 13, 2024 12:58 pm
Sod, How do you post pictures ?

Use the Attachments tab or drag and drop. If they're big files, like more than about 2Mb, they won't upload, so you need to lower the file size. Many phone default settings are way too high.

Here you can see routing of cable from valve around side of battery carrier and as mentioned push pull knob is below dash on bracket.

Thanks all for all the info:)
The car is indeed wired negative Earth, with a warning label stating that.
I do know how the positive contacted the heater cable; My fault as I fitted a larger (known as good) battery, but the existing leads would not reach the terminals no matter which way I fitted the battery. I extended the positive cable (because I had, a Red one), but because it was a temp measure, stupidly didn't insulate the join A cardboard box resting on top of the open bonnet eventually got pressed against the join, onto the heater cable.
I just couldn't find any pictures of two cables in that position.
Did any links to pictures that I posted show up please?

mogser wrote: ↑Fri Sep 13, 2024 3:54 pm
Did any links to pictures that I posted show up please?

Yes, the links are there, but links to external sites are, to be honest, a pain.
Because they can disappear in months or years to come and render the topic a bit useless.
There's loads of ineffective posts on here dated back in 2010 or so, where the images are no longer there because they used often use external hosting.

Your pics

BillGaz Where is your battery earth lead going to?

SEROWMANMICHAEL wrote: ↑Fri Sep 13, 2024 9:15 pm BillGaz Where is your battery earth lead going to?

Battery isolator switch, the handle of which is inside the car near the bonnet pull, so can be switched on or off from inside the car

geoberni wrote: ↑Fri Sep 13, 2024 5:26 pm

mogser wrote: ↑Fri Sep 13, 2024 3:54 pm
Did any links to pictures that I posted show up please?

Yes, the links are there, but links to external sites are, to be honest, a pain.
Because they can disappear in months or years to come and render the topic a bit useless.
There's loads of ineffective posts on here dated back in 2010 or so, where the images are no longer there because they used often use external hosting.

Hi, Is there a way that in the future I can just add pictures to posts? I did look for the option but couldn't find one? Thanks

mogser wrote: ↑Fri Sep 20, 2024 12:16 pm
Hi, Is there a way that in the future I can just add pictures to posts? I did look for the option but couldn't find one? Thanks

Yes. You upload the attachment and then you can choose to place it in "in-line" and be shown embedded with the thread post or as an attachment that visitors can click upon and open.

rocco wrote: ↑Fri Sep 20, 2024 1:42 pm

mogser wrote: ↑Fri Sep 20, 2024 12:16 pm
Hi, Is there a way that in the future I can just add pictures to posts? I did look for the option but couldn't find one? Thanks

Yes. You upload the attachment and then you can choose to place it in "in-line" and be shown embedded with the thread post or as an attachment that visitors can click upon and open.

I already told him that last week, on my post above Fri 13th; I also warned him about having images too a large file size.. viewtopic.php?p=702022#p702022