Car died and came back to life?

[crj1968]

So I was driving today and it suddenly died, nasty smoke coming out from under the hood. (electrical)

Found my air cleaner was touching the 12V wire on my elec choke. The wire was torched, of course. (Just put on a new edelbrock and performer rpm...)

Anyway, got that taken care of but then the ignition was dead, no blown fuse. Could turn on other stuff etc...
So I though I'll put the ignition on and try jumping the starter solenoid...But when I went to turn the key it fired up and I quickly shut the hood and made it back home.   Is there some sort of resettable link or something?  I looked for it, as I recall this from my early mopar days but um....   

Just a bit nervous about it because being stranded bites. Anything I should check?

[crj1968]

Sorry, never mind- search is my friend. 

[crj1968]

Well after a bit more thought and "google-foo" I still have no idea how this happened.   

How did a short like this cause the the starter solenoid not to work and then after a few minutes work again?    

[JB400]

Could be that it got too hot.  After letting it cool for a few minutes, it went back to working.  Electronics don't like heat all that well

[charger Downunder]

One of the safest things you can do is carefully undo the big  bulkhead wire connector and examine it for heat clean the terminals and apply dielectric grease and put it back together.

[myk]

How's your wiring in general?  Might be time to start thinking about changing some of it out.  Like you said, getting stranded bites...

[crj1968]

Thanks all.   

The wiring looks original. I should replace it just because....but in the meantime I will clean it up.

Probably drive the car around the cul-de-sac for and hour to make sure it doesnt die.