Hi Brent,

Sorry to read about your grief and the photo is worth a thousand words. I
noticed that when I operated the correctly operating A/C in my '91 MV, the
6mm red cable that runs across the engine from the Alt B+ lug to the S23 50A
fuse in the left D pillar, got hot to the touch(~100*F). I installed a
second 6mm parallel cable with a 40A fuse. With the new twin circuit, the
original cable temp dropped to ~77*F with the A/C on. This indicates that
OEM wiring diameter is clearly marginal to maximum electrical consumer load.

Having said that, I'm puzzled about your wiring meltdown explanation. The
power consumers you mentioned are fed from the fuse box which is powered
directly from the battery thus if their combined current draw is excessive,
the battery wiring/cabling supplies the extra power. The electrical cable
diameter from the Vanagon Alternator to the battery is matched to the
typical max 90A output. When switched-on consumer current exceeds the Alt
output, the battery supplies the extra power, not the Alternator. So it's
not clear why the Alternator cabling melted during a high consumer current
load.

Please review the Bentley battery & charging wiring schematics for your
Vanagon. The schematic shows that consumer overload is handled by the heavy
OEM battery wiring. So why did your Alt cable melt?????????

As a suggestion, if the the Alt output cable was shorted to ground(B-), the
OEM cable diameter could not withstand the current flow from the Alt AND the
battery, so the meltdown would occur!!!!!!!!!!

Happy holidays,        John

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