Here are a few pics of my engine finding its way home...a welcome sight to me after some fairly long delays in the process (most notably sourcing an in-spec piston to replace the one I broke during disassembly - Thanks again Henry Schmidt). Anyone who's done this project knows how I feel seeing the engine back in the car, but I have to admit to the reassembly and reinstallation being much smoother and easier than I'd imagined possible...everything was quiet...too quite, it seems. Now, I have encountered a problem...any ideas or advice would be most welcome.
After reinstalling the engine, I got a big spark when reattaching the negative wire to the negative battery post - quickly removed it and broke out my multimeter. It turns out that the body of the car behaves just like the positive post on the battery. I get 12.4 volts on the meter by touching the black probe to the negative terminal and the red probe to the body of the car. If I touch the red probe to the positive battery post and the black probe to the car's body, I get 0 volts - exactly opposite of what should be the case. I reviewed all my connections and even disconnected them all (the quick release wiring harness connections in the engine compartment as well as the wires on the starter and alternator), but the condition persists. I then reconnected everything and went through my fuses one by one - removing them did not remedy the short. The condition exists without the key being in the ignition so I really didn't expect the fuse exercise to yield any positive results. Somewhere, I seem to have an always hot wire in direct contact with the car's body - have to assume it's related to the engine removal and re-installation as the car was fine prior to that and has been sitting untouched on jack stands for two and a half months.
Hopefully I'm missing something simple or even stupid simple...don't worry about insulting me if I am. At this point I'd be willing to sacrifice a little ego for an answer
Does anyone know of a "usual suspect" for this sort of short?
