speedometer needle melts off!!!!

[F22B2slow]

Ok, I just had a new clutch put into my 93 ls. After getting 20 ft down the road, I notice that when I put on the brakes the car makes that noise indicating your seat belt isn't on. Also, I loose all electrical power. The clock fades out, the windows won't roll down, and I have no headlights. So I try to make it home and as I'm sitting at a red light, the speedometer needle melts off and I smell Electrical fire and see smoke all in the heads-up display. The check engine light comes on and the car dies. I manage to get it to start but it takes like 4 times. When I try to start it, it makes a crazy sound like when you try to start a car that's running? Anyway I managed to get back to the guy's garage avoiding a tow bill. Does anybody know what the hell is going on? I guess somethings crossed causing an electrical surge but what? Please help!!!

[Z U L8R]

you have a pretty nice electrical problem there. there's no way i can tell you over the internet what wires are on wrong. all i can suggest is looking at the harness and making sure everything's going to the correct place, and look for the wire that has the insulation burnt/torn/cracked lol. check the obvious places first like the things that need to get undone/unplugged/taken off, in order to do a clutch, especially the starter. being that you have so many electrical failures in so many areas of your car. you definately have a direct short to ground. meaning a wire that contains 12volts is touching somewhere on the chassis/engine or some other kind of ground. i would definately check the cables on the starter first. good luck =]

[F22B2slow]

thanx for your help dave. This is what the mechanic feed me. Ok he said that he had only seen one other honda do this in his life. Supposedly, there was a very poor ground and basically the car made a ground in my speedometer or with something involving my speedometer.
Now, this may have some truth because when I brought the car I replaced the stock transmission-battery-chassis ground with a thicker gauge wire. However when I did this I didn't ground the battery to the chassis. I just ran 2g from the negative posts to the transmission. But, It ran fine until I had the clutch put in. The mechanic responded by saying it could have barely been grounding before, then once everything was dismantled and put back together it didn't ground at all.
I'm about to go see what all was burned so I will get back to you on that, but I am just wondering what your take on that is. Thanx

[Z U L8R]

Ok he said that he had only seen one other honda do this in his life. Supposedly, there was a very poor ground and basically the car made a ground in my speedometer or with something involving my speedometer.

if the car had such a poor ground....how would it start/run?.....

Now, this may have some truth because when I brought the car I replaced the stock transmission-battery-chassis ground with a thicker gauge wire. However when I did this I didn't ground the battery to the chassis. I just ran 2g from the negative posts to the transmission. But, It ran fine until I had the clutch put in. The mechanic responded by saying it could have barely been grounding before, then once everything was dismantled and put back together it didn't ground at all.

upgrading your grounds don't fry things. there's many kits you can buy that fan out so you can ground various parts of your motor/chassis.

grounds are safe. sometimes even referred to as "earth." i like Jesus so i'll speak in a parable

if you're standing on earth, in a scarey electrical storm, and you get electricuted.....and your penis/speedometer...melts off.....was that because your earth is bad, or you're standing in quicksand? perhaps you were standing on a solid rock, would that have made a difference?

or could you now be a woman because there was a shit load of voltage in the lightning rod that struck you while you were standing on the earth's ground like you're supposed to be.

bottom line (i run a shop if that adds credibility), it didn't have this electrical issue before you got the clutch put in....and now it does....as the customer, you have every right to hold the mechanic accountable and request they rectify the situation.....as the mechanic in this scenario, i would double check my work, and if i screwed it up "sorry sir for the inconvenience, please allow me to make it right for you", it sux, but it's the right thing to do, that's how you keep customers, and a business makes more money by multiple repeat customers than one different customer each time spending a little. if after i checked it out i found the problem and it had nothing to do with replacing the clutch. then i'd take you out to your car on the lift and show you what the problem is, or where the problem is and you could see for yourself that there was no way replacing the clutch could have made this new problem, that it was just a coincedence, and if the resolution is fairly inexpensive, for the inconvenience i'd fix it for free and have a happy customer, if it was an expensive repair, then i'd do my best to give the best price i can give and help you out on the next go around.

there's a positive wire or other 12volt source that's touching a ground, it's backfeeding and the current is flowing to the path of least resistance (that path can change too) thus causing electrical problems in multiple areas


check the wires going to the starter/alternator GL =]