I am trying to fix/sell a 1989 Cherokee Laredo for my grandmother. It seems to be an electrical nightmare under the hood because almost nothing in the wiring diagrams I've found online or in books matches the wire colors in this Jeep. It's obvious that someone has been in there at some point cutting and splicing wires, which is no good.

The problem I'm currently experiencing is that the wire marked with an arrow in the picture below was literally smoking and melting with the battery hooked up. Now, this wasn't the case 6 months ago. So something has gotten stuck or gone bad while it's sat in the driveway.

Where does this wire go? It starts off blue then turns to red. I believe the blue part might be fuse-able link, but I'm not positive. The nearby green ones are labeled as such, but the blue one doesn't appear to be.


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The blue fusible link attached to a red wire is the feed from the alternator.

 

Logan, just in case you didn't know, if you hold your "ctrl" key, then press "+", it will enlarge Radi's diagram.

As my handle suggests, I'm sort of a bone-head. Just disconnect the smoking wire and see how it goes..what is NOT working?

Do look around, and under the dash. Mice and other cridders chew insulation and do all sorts it un-welcome stuff.

 

It looks like the blue goes to the alternator. It has 6 diodes in it, if one of the three positive were shot it might ground that, but I'd suspect a wire.

 

One other thing, one of the green fusible links that splits into red wires had a battery drain someplace.

I managed to trace it to the door pins for the dome light. I couldn't get them working correctly but once I removed the fuse for the dome light then the battery drain went away.

I did this last summer in order to get rid of the battery drain, everything seemed fine after that. However, this spring when I decided to buckle down and get the thing sold, I hooked up the battery and that's when the blue link started to smoke.

 

Disconnect the red wire at the alternator and see if the problem stops. If it does, there's a fault with the alternator. If there is still trouble, follow that wire back from the alternator to the start relay/fusible link looking for shorts, abraded insulation, etc.