When Love Meets Voltage

I learned a lesson today after working on a starter motor after the car wouldn’t turn over. Fortunately I was one of the lucky ones. I’ll explain.

Somewhere along a bumpy off-highway road the male/female spade connector at the starter came apart, and I didn’t realize it had happened until I climbed back inside and attempted to turn over the ignition. If you know anything about starters on a Vanagon you know that they are extremely difficult to access. In fact, some of the work to repair a wire is done blindly. Not an easy thing to do when you are flat on your back in the dirt. At first I went underneath the van with my iPhone flashlight and that’s when I saw the wires dangling.

When I removed the engine cover I could see a bare spade on the solenoid and another thick red wire hanging down near it, obviously it was a hot 12 volt lead. I reached my hands in there to see if I could reattach the connectors, and with much struggling I was able to secure them and restart the engine. That’s the good news.

The bad news is everyday shade-tree mechanics like me have jumped into electrical problems without ever giving a thought to the rings or jewelry they wear. Gold rings for instance are very conductive metals. There’s loads of power going to the starter and it doesn’t take much voltage to do some serious damage to your finger should your ring act as a ground. If your ring completes the 12-volt circuit (hundreds of amps) you’re going to be in for some serious hurt.

I don’t normally work on anything electrical without first disconnecting the battery cables. But this time I wasn’t thinking and I dove into the job. If you don’t believe it can happen just Google “grounded out wedding band.” These are some pretty disgusting images.

This is why most mechanics don’t wear any jewelry, or when they do wear rings they wear silicone bands. It’s not because silicone bands are trending, it’s all about safety. Lesson learned.