Electrical fire - Jinma 204

[Catch95]

Started up my Jinma this morning after using it quite happily the day before for an hour and so. Started first pop but within seconds I had smoke pouring out from under the hood. I immediately shut it down, turned off the key and then went to disconnect the battery.

But one the wiring looms was still burning so I hit the area with a fire extinguisher first and then got the battery unhooked.

The wires in that loom seem totalled with many of the wires burnt through and beyond my ability to remedy, so I've arranged to have it taken to a shop for repair. I don't know what other electrical components have been damaged.

It has 500+ hours on the clock and hasn't missed a beat up until now. The only hint of anything wrong was an unexplained flat battery about 6 weeks ago but it has been fine since.

Wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem

Mark

 

[3RRL]

Mark,
You might be one of the few, if not only guy on here with that many hours?
Other than that, I have not read about similar experiences.

 

[SPIKER]

Catch 95:

that looks pretty much a bad spot in there some place. fixing/repairing this should not be too hard at all, there are only some 10 or so wires in the tractor. the wire loom is easy to get at most wally worlds but I would opt for slightly better wires. by stripping back more loom you should find all the different colors of wire, on each side, try & keep all of them fully intact, replace them 100% end to end one at a time, following a much longer path but all of the new ones grouped together. that way you can remove the old ones then go back and tighten up the new wires... you will run into several wire connectors along the way and the fuse box too. as well as the glow plug bar ect. it would be pretty easy to do for most part. I think there are some wire diagrams on-line, on JOHN S's site...


anyhow good luck

MarkM

 

[JohnS]

You need to trace out the wire in the forground, the one that is only bare wire. This wire was carring all the current from the short. Chances are, the short was not there in the middle of the loom. Unless you had a wire hanging out of the loom and chaffing.

Unless this was on an unfused or possibly the 30amp fuse, a fuse should have blown. Need to go through fuse block. If you have the wire type fuses, check the wire gauge of each, to see if you have heavier gauge in a low value fuse. You should be able to look at the 30, 10, 15, etc, and see obvious differences.

Did you use glowplugs on the start-up? That is a common area for electrical problems.

 

[SPIKER]

I would imigian that that wire was the one that goes through the AMP METER. it probably shorted some place prior to reaching the gauge. The ALT would have dumped a lot of power into it along with possable battery involvement... Anyhow I still think a loom opening up and wire by wire change out would be an easy way to go...

Mark M

 

[Soundguy]

Catch.. make sure you get all that dry chemical off once you get your tractor back!

Soundguy

 

[thingy]

I got about 560 hours on my 254,course ain't been on here for a while,,,thingy

 

[TruChaos]

I manage a series of electrical engineering laboratories and I've seen a lot of electrical failures. Some are simple failures, others are catastrophic failures resulting in fires, etc.

Owning a Jinma tractor and seeing the low quality of the wiring harness and connectors, I immediately saw the potential for an electrical fire. I've mentioned this problem in threads on this web site and others. I'm not bashing these tractors as I really enjoy mine but, it surprises me that we don't hear of more serious electrical failures like the fire mentioned. You don't need me to tell you there is a tremendous amount of energy stored in a battery and a short circuit can start a fire in a second or less.

What I did to prevent the potential damage of an electrical fire was to install a master battery cut off switch.

One of my fears would be for a short circuit to occur in the middle of the night and the tractor to go up in flames and take my garage with it. Now, I can simply flip a switch and the tractor harness is completely de-energized.

Or if I'm working with the tractor and a short circuit should occur, I can simply open the hood and flip the switch to stop it.

While I was at it, I installed a power tap so I can charge the battery and plug in high current attachments like power inverters, etc.


Here is a picture of my switch mod.

 

[Keoke]

Hi Catch, consider putting a fusible link in series with your B+ power lead at the very start of this circuit. The B+ starting point is usually at the battery post lead on the solenoid. Look for the heavy gauge wires (10 gauge or better) at this point and put a fusible link in series here. A fusible link is short piece of wire that is 4 gauges smaller (10=14 gauge link) and is designed to melt open before heavy gauge feeder lead goes to smoke. There may be more then one B+ feeder lead coming off the solenoid stud fuse them all. If tractor has glow plugs this circuit should have a hi amps fuse or circuit breaker of it's own as close to B+ source as possible. Circuit protection devices do not protect for shorts to gnd BEFORE the protector (fuse or breaker).
The down side of fusible links is a slight voltage drop across them at hi amp circuit flow, this is the cost of the circuit protection.
All automotive parts stores should have these fusible links, even in the land of the kangaroo.
PS, don't tape a fusible link into a harness it needs to be accessible for heat dissipation and replacement.

cheers

 

[thingy]

Well,,like I said,I got 560-570 hours on mine and it ain't spontanously combusted yet,,so.....thingy