well i had to repair a few things on my car today like the shift linkage decided to take a crap on me today and so did the engine/tranny mounts so i got those all sorted out and everything turned out fine... i disconnected a few of the sensors so that i could get to the rear tranny mount with as little trouble as possible... other than that i did nothing that involved wiring... anyways- back on track... i took the car off the stands and throw it into reverse to backup into my garage and i notice that smoke is coming out of the hood in the front drivers side area... i figure i have a coolant leak and its just steam so i open up my hood and low and behold a fire decides to shoot up at me... it was minor(maybe the size a a large fist) and it was located right next to the starter under the dizzy... i put the flames out and there didnt seem to be too much damage... i then fixed what i thought was the problem and drive over to my girls house and back up into her driveway... the car starts actin funny as if the iacv is bad and smoke starts coming out again but there was no fire... same thing when i got back to my house... car runs great unless i put it in reverse and the lights dim and the idle starts acting up and smoke appears just below the dizzy... im not an electrical genious but i think that i have a short somewhere... any ideas? btw my setup is a '91 std hatch with rywire harness and d16z6... thanks
-Josh

 

check your reverse sensor in the transmission?

 

was your starter on fire? or just wiring next to it? it could be the wiring for your starter, cause that carries a lot of current. i would bet that it has something to do with it anyway. good luck though.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by sanimalp &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">was your starter on fire? or just wiring next to it? it could be the wiring for your starter, cause that carries a lot of current. i would bet that it has something to do with it anyway. good luck though.</TD></TR></TABLE> I tought about it , but he says it only happens when its in reverse , only thing i can think of thats around the distributor that has something to deal with reverse is the reverse sensor ?

 

where is the reverse sensor at? there are a couple of things that i think could have caused it... first i am thinking of the reverse sensor b/c it only happens now when im in reverse... my positive battery cable because my battery is located in the trunk and i have it connected to the starter cable and the fuse box cable in a sort of ghetto way but i have it ziptied to one of the hoses and i wrapped the heck out of it with electrical tape so no wire is showing... the only other thing that i think it could be is i have an aftermarket temp gauge that i installed a week or two ago and the wire that runs from the sensor to the gauge ran just above the starter and after i put out the fire it looked like it could have touched the + connection on the starter and grounded out on something(either motor or body)... right now im really looking at the temp gauge as the culprit and thinking that the reverse problem is a result of the fire... i just need to know where the reverse sensor is located so i can see if it was damaged from the original fire and is now grounding out whenever i throw it into reverse... thanks a lot guys and i will take some pics today and post the pictures up for you all to see
-Josh

 

ttt

 

heres a picture of the damage:

 

yeah that starter solenoid looks pretty melted..

 

that starter and reverse sensor looks messed up