Member - Roachie (SA) replied:

Cripes mate.....sorry to read of your drama!!!! What a bloody mongrel of a thing to happen.... I'd be really p'eed-off too.....more than I could say on here that's for sure.

Good luck with it and hope there is no long-term damage that can't be fixed in a few days.........

Cheers

Roachie

Member - greg S (QLD) replied:

G'day Dave,
Sorry to hear of your bad news, but atleast you and the family are safe and well, albeit very cranky. Hope all goes well with your insurance claim.

Greg

Member - jeff M (SA) replied:

Hi David,

Sounds like a pain in the a$$ , hope you get it fix in time and hope your trip runs a bit smoother than tonight's episode.

Cheers Scoof .. :-)

Outnabout David (SA) replied:

Wow what and experience that must have been. Went through a similar thing 30 years ago in a camper bus where the battery was underneath the floor and there were no tolls in the toolbox.

I hope you don'y have any insurance hassles and I hope they don't write your car off. I was looking at your rig details and sawe how much gear you have which you wouldn't get the value back from insurance.

Geez you have as much stuff as Roachi.

What is it with you Nissan nuts????? LOL

Steve from Top End Explorer Tours replied:

I would be at there door before it opens tomorrow, I would demand that it is fixed before your intended trip.

If it isn't I would tell them that they would have lawyers crawling out their arse, Fair trading down their neck and more Media attention than they could handle.

But thats me.

Good luck Steve.

Member - Banjo (WA) replied:

David

As you state, better now than somewhere remote, if it had to happen at all.

But what a stuff up! Bet the old sphincter valve tightened a notch or two.

Banjo (WA)

Member - Leigh (Vic) replied:

Sh#t..that nearly put a tear in my eye. My heart goes out to you, the good lady and the kids however I have an inkling that you may recover quickly from this...I hope so. I'd loan you my troopy but I see you are a Nissan man!! Best wishes for a speedy recovery and a quick exit to the bush. Cheers

Member - JohnR (Vic)&Moses replied:

Grungle, I reckon your repairers are going to get pretty shifty about picking up responsibility on this one. Hope you get it sorted quickly, but you may need an autolec to diagnose what they had done. The court sounds pretty interesting for lawyers...........

obee replied:

I am thinking of where would be a good place to fit the isolator away from mischievous fingers but accessable outside the cab but not under the bonnet. Open to ideas because I have one of those ones with a bent handle that is turned to release the handle and take it with you. Not on the key ring tho, its a heavy thing.

Sorry to hear of your bad luck. I wonder if the insurance coy will thank you for trying to save the vehicle.

Owen

SA_Patrol replied:

It'll be nice if the company at fault would pay for the hire car so you could continue with your trip, but I know that won't happen :-(

Member - Uncle (NSW) replied:

Sorry to hear of your greif there Grungle, I would get an independant auto elec to appraise it first to see exactly whats happened, BEFORE letting the guys who supposedly fixed it go near it!!(In writing too)(and pics if possible).

Pezza (Bris) replied:

SHEEEEIIT Fella!!!
Talk about quick thinking, level headed and balls to be stuffing around disconecting a battery whilst your car is on fire, then again, having had the pleasure of having met you it doesn't surprise me.
Damn, I'm glad you saved it, I know how much work you put into it, even if they do write it off you may still be able to buy it back, and worse case scenario transfer everything into another non-BBQ'd one :-))
Bugger about missing the trip up nth though.
Hope everything works out for the best in the end for you mate, keep us updated.

Cheers
Pezza

Member - Doug T (W.A) replied:

Looks like you'll be doing a bit of this .


Geez mate we would all hope the Insurance coughs up ok , you know what a mob of theiving mongrels they are . anyhow good luck ,

Doug

jeffwa replied:

Bloody hell, you'd think they'd have a circut breaker on the winch circut or somthing, that's just a fire waiting to happen otherwise.

Damn lucky the inside didn't go up while you were trying to get the terminals off, I reckon a few shots of somthing strong would have been had after that one. Gotta be your worst nightmare I reckon.

I wonder what the bloody hell they did, I mean it's not hard to work out that red goes to red and black goes to black!! ????

Member - extfilm (NSW) replied:

Grungle,
No I don't believe it :( very sorry to hear. I feel for you......
Make sure u got pics of it...... Show the P beaters the pics 2morrow. let them know you are getting an independant report done on it.
You can also call your insurance to get advice too.
As you say lucky you were not up nth. And most important than anything else no one was injured or seriously hurt.
Chin up mate...... things happen for a reason...... and there are better things happening around the corner :)

Trekkie (Member - WA) replied:

Similar story with one of my mates - he had a winch fitted to his near new F250 and three weeks later the winch caught fire while his wife was out shopping with the F250. She came out of the shop to find smoke coming out of the Bull Bar - pulled the terminals off to stop it - apparently installed incorrectly (I never did find out from them why it happened after three weeks)

Grungle replied:

A big thanks to all of you who have replied. It means a lot and I do apologise if I don't get back to you all.

Aside to the problem:
I have pulled the torch out and tried to find out why this happened. Discovered that the connection from the negative terminal of the battery to the earth point of the winch was resistive due to not being done up properly at the winch. Found the bolt that connected the terminal to the winch casing was half done up and the cable was free to move (hence why it was the first to spark). This meant that the earth return for the winch went along the chassis rail, through the handbrake cable (which is the flexible steel conduit I mislabled as the speedo cable) to the transfer case then back along the gearbox, motor and then negative terminal of the battery via the body / motor / battery earth cable.

There was a small 6mm² cable that earthed the winch control box to the body which vapourised due to the current involved. It looks like this was the inital return path but after vapourinsing, the earth returns next path was via the chassis rail and gearbox / motor.

I had the vehicle running at the time but I can't understand why the earth return didn't go along the chassis rail and through the earth cable that connects the battery neg to the body. Is the body and chassis rail earthed together? If not then this would explain why it went through the motor and gearbox.

As the handbrake cable is the thinnest connection between the chassis rail and motor, this would explain why it glowed like it did. I would say that there would have been between 100 and 200 amps across it.

Hope to see more in the morning. I have an auto elecy friend coming around first thing to help me do some checks and see exactly what has been fried (physically and electronically). I am dreading the dash and pray to god that it was a single wire that decided to vapourise (touch wood) and it easy to find.

Will let you all know how it turns out.

Again thanks.
Regards
David

D-Jack replied:

I reckon I would have let the Jackaroo go up in smoke! Let us know exactly what happened, it may come in handy when I'm stuck in the Simpson with a 'TD Jackaroo' problem. I'll be buggered if I'm paying $5000 for a recovery out there!

D-Jack

blue one replied:

That reminds me, ARB never did get back and explain why the dual battery isolating solenoid caught fire in my Patrol!!

I hope your rig is fixed ASAP.

Member - Brian H (QLD) replied:

Nothing more to say ..... if there is a positive in all this it was in your yard and not in the middle of The Cape which would have had lot more issues to deal with.

Sorry to hear about your car. Plenty of photo's and I agree your insurance maybe the best one to deal with chasing up who's fault.

Brian

Trevor R (QLD) replied:

Man sorry to read about this terrible experience.

I am sure you will, but please let us know how your auto lec friend advises you on how to avoid this happening in the future. Maybe all with a winch should learn from your experience. Tuff as it is.

Good luck in recovering your truck to it's former glory.
Regards, Trevor.

Diver1 replied:

good luck getting it fixed mate...what a bummer!!!

laura

Dave Thomson replied:

Had a similar prob some years ago and the garage refused to accept responsibility rang the office of fair trading they sent an inspector down [had to pay for that $90.00} but it was money well spent once they saw the report they paid in full, also theres the small claims court, all that will cost is $21.00,
take photos , log all evidence,
good luck ,
Dave