[Rob]

97 Cougar developed a fire on the LH side of the engine bay. I havent inspected it myself yet, but the valve cover, master cyl and wire harnesses on the LH side are melted. The battery started on fire. I suspect the positive post grounded on the hood or rats have been in the car. The car stuttered before this happened to the guy. He parked it and 30 mins later it was burning. Do all of the underhood wire harnesses terminate in relatively easy places? I totally stripped a mark harness once, but I suspect the t-bird may be a little different.

This cougar is also cool since I can swap in my 93 138k dohc after I do some bowl work on the heads and redo the rings/valve seals. Any ideas or pointers let me know, but I havent gotten to see how extensive the damage is. I will check it out tomorrow.
-Rob

 

[Scott Suzanne]

The harness isn't too awful hard to get out, everything goes from the right side of the firewall around the back of the motor and then splits off just forward of the upper intake manifold (all the right side wiring). I don't remember any really difficult to get at connections.

 

[master486]

There are three separate harnesses under the hood.

One starts at the driver's side of the firewall behind the shock tower and branches off in two directions. One goes above the brake booster and feeds the master cylinder, wiper motor, and hood light wiring. The other branch goes down along the framerail towards the front of the car and then goes splits going to both sides of the front core support.

The second harness goes from the CCRM up above the passenger shock tower and then through the firewall to the computer.

The third harness is the actual engine harness and it plugs into the second harness mentioned above in the corner behind the passenger shock tower. They are all relatively easy to remove.

 

[Rob]

Great info! Since the fire was mostly on the LH side, I think the CCRM harness is ok. Tomorrow I get to decide how much extra money to get for the parts that are damaged. Thanks
-Rob

 

[Grog6]

One of the 'standard' shorts is right there in that harness...

(the other is under the driver's seat)

search for short related stuff; several of us discussed this awhile back.

 

[Rob]

OK I looked at the car, the top of the batter is melted off, plastic intake is charred, all plastic parts of the fusebox are GONE. Is the fuse box part of the harness? I think it is on this car anyway. The only other part of the harness that got it bad was on the LH front, right behind the radiator support. The top of the cooling fan and LH rad tank are also melted. It looks like it was very hot under there. I think I'm gonna ask him for $300 (probably wont be enough to fix it all).
-Rob

 

[master486]

The fuse box is part of that harness. Does the car have ABS? If not, I have that complete harness available for purchase.

 

[Rob]

cool, how much would the harness be shipped to 76648 business address? I'm gonna start actually cleaning up the car next week to figure out what all is broken. Thanks
-Rob

 

[master486]

$61 shipped to business. If you need any other parts I might have them, just let me know.