Cadillac Repair: wiring, cadillac catera, 98 cadillac catera

Question
few days ago my girl caught engine wiring going into fire wall on fire it also melted some vacum lines. i cut out section that got burnt and piece them together. it was pretty simple for most part but some wires were same color like 3 browns etc. everything seems to be working fine inside car but now engine will rotate but not start. do u think it is wiring or vacum lines not hooked up? if wires are same color do they all share a link some where? where can i find a new harness cheap? is ther a gas shut down button?  98 cadillac catera 3.0l

Answer
Hi John,

      Good thing you got the fire out before any major damage happened. The vacuum hoses probably go to the mode doors for the heater, vent and defroster. Unless you had a MAP(manifold absolute pressure) sensor vacuum hose go open the engine should still start and run. Because of the many wires it is tough to come up with that many different colors. However there are some wires that GM vehicles use that are universal in that black is always a ground wire, pink is ignition voltage while red is battery voltage.

      What I would do is go to your Caddy dealer and see if you can make some copies of the wiring diagrams and there the wires go in the connectors. Then using an ohmmeter you should be able to trace where all the brown wires are supposed to go.

       If the dealer can't help then subscribe to AllData for your Catera and you will have all the info you need at your computer and can print it out and take it to the car. I believe a 1 year subscription is $24 and that is allot cheaper and easier to do that installing another wire harness. If you like I have a 3 piece set of GM factory manuals that I can sell you for $25 plus shipping. There isn't anyway I can send you the info from the manual because that would be a copyright infringement and AllExperts doesn't allow sending that info anyway.

     As for a fuel shut-off...that is more a Ford device and isn't on your car.

     If you want to try to find a harness then Google over to junkyarddog.com and enter the info required and maybe with-in 1 hour you will get some responses. At that point you can decide if it is cheap enough.

     Let me know if I can be anymore help or if you would like the manuals. You can e-mail me at willnick3@netscape.net      Bill