Parking Brake Cable Shorting?

Edit:

A little background: I bought this 1998 Tacoma Ext Cab 4x4 for $1400 dollars off of one of my co-workers last week. I have a motorcycle and a daily driver. And so I wanted a truck to be my motorcycle hauler/project car

It is a 5 speed manual transmission, no rust (California). It has 275,000 miles but the top end was rebuilt at 150,000. The engine purrs because the owner was a married father of 3 and was meticulous about changing the oil every 3k miles. This was his daily driver. Unfortunately, he hit something on the right of the vehicle which cut a hole in the sheet metal and removed the door handle. Frame is straight and so I decided to pick it up for a cheap price. (Since it has high milage, and the mechanics I took it to all said I was getting a great deal.) I lucked out and found a door (same color) for 200 bucks at a junk yard. I'm going to replace that soon.

I took the truck to an audio shop looking to wire up my car for LED reverse lights and an LED bar. I had him install the reverse lights and install wiring for the LED bar once it arrived. I installed it when it arrived grounding the bar at the frame from the battery ground strap. He installed a switch plus relay grounding the relay to the wiring harness.


I recently wired an LED light bar to my truck and am getting some sort of short circuit. I turned on the car and smoke started coming out of the dash. I immediately turned it off. I inspected the truck and noticed that the Parking Brake wire melted though the pulley. The pulley looks like this:


Imagine the parking brake wire melting though half of it. I had to use pliers to pull that piece off of the car. What could cause this?

 

Well I'd start by seeing if you messed up a body or frame ground. Sounds like the parking brake cable became the ground cable for some reason. That or you left something dangling on it and it became a short.

 

This is gonna be Good !!!!

Something was grounding back through the Emergency Brake Cable the real question is what and what you did that caused it.

 

Can I haz some of dat?

 

I found where the smoke was coming from. This wiring harness by the door is melted. Anyone know where the brown/black wire goes? It seems to be going to the taillight

 

Seems to be the backup wire ground... can someone confirm?

 

Here are some more photos....

The backstory is that I paid for a shop to install 2 LED backup lights (18w each) and the guy spliced the rear light to power these lights. I think the combined voltage 3 AMPS is too much for the backup wire. Can anyone confirm? I want to make them pay to install a new harness... I have receipts and all for the work and it is a reputable shop...

 

I run more of a load through my reverse lights with no problems . For several years

Having no idea how the install was done but if you draw more of a load then the circuit protection (fuse) it should open.

Was the fuse increased in rating for some reason beyond stock.

Just what year ??

 

+

This is a very common problem . Check your grounds !!
Add extra grounds .

 

I would take the LED lights off and check each one to see if maybe one is faulty. Connect each one to a 12v source to make sure they operate correctly. That will eliminate the lights themselves as the problem. Next I would find which wires they connected to when the hooked them up. When found, follow the wire all the way to the fuse block or use a multimeter to locate it in the wiring harness. Do the same with the grounds for the lights.
Since you have messed with it, the shop will deny that it was their fault as they have no way of knowing if you didn't cause the short circuit.

 

Does anyone know if the dark brown wire is a ground? It seems to be labeled as "1" in the schematics

 

They fucked something up for sure. Check your grounds. Make sure they did it properly

 

Upon further inspection it seems to be the fuel tank sender. I noticed the fuel gauge stopped working...


Anyone know how to remove this unit to inspect it?

 

Drop the tank.

 

Much easier to remove the bed .

Messing with fuel systems I always unbolt the bed the needed wires the fuel filler neck

Slide the bed back

For me it is easier then trying to disconnect and reconnect brittle fuel line connections on top of the tank from under neath.

**** Before doing this though the gauge problem may be in the melted wires or a open fuse.

 

More pictures...

A little background: I bought this 1998 Tacoma Ext Cab 4x4 for $1400 dollars off of one of my co-workers last week. I have a motorcycle and a daily driver. And so I wanted a truck to be my motorcycle hauler/project car

It is a 5 speed manual transmission, no rust (California). It has 275,000 miles but the top end was rebuilt at 150,000. The engine purrs because the owner was a married father of 3 and was meticulous about changing the oil every 3k miles. This was his daily driver. Unfortunately, he hit something on the right of the vehicle which cut a hole in the sheet metal and removed the door handle. Frame is straight and so I decided to pick it up for a cheap price. (Since it has high milage, and the mechanics I took it to all said I was getting a great deal.) I lucked out and found a door (same color) for 200 bucks at a junk yard. I'm going to replace that soon.

I took the truck to an audio shop looking to wire up my car for LED reverse lights and an LED bar. I had him install the reverse lights and install wiring for the LED bar once it arrived. I installed it when it arrived grounding the bar at the frame from the battery ground strap. He installed a switch plus relay grounding the relay to the wiring harness.

So I followed @Wyoming09 's advice and unbolted the back and slid the bed back


I follow the shorted wire (the plastic had melted around it) and followed it on top of the gas tank.



This is what it looked like when I removed it. Notice the bare copper above the blue wire. The wire had heated up so much that the insulation was burnt off. This went on throughout the vehicle until the grounding point. I'm so lucky the wire is only a ground and doesn't go into the main harness (which costs $1300 dollars for the part)



Here is how the shop wired the front light. The wire with the blue tab goes into a relay, but this is the low voltage side of the circuit. The brown wire goes all the way to the fuel sender unit through two harnesses below the corner of the door.

 

I feel somehow the low voltage relay ground became the high voltage relay ground. Anyone have any ideas? The smoke happened when I turned on the truck and so I'm guessing that wire became ground for the starter?

 

Without being there in person It is a tough call to make

For sure that wire carried one big amount of current !!!

Why anyone would tie a relay ground into something else and not run a new one makes no sense to me.