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Do yourselves a favour and check your fusible links (follow POS battery terminal to black cover box plastic MY, brown for L) in the next coupla days. You could save a heck of a lot of grief in near future if you do. My BRumby had disabling symptoms at the age of 23 due to a FL that had corroded away where the female spade terminal goes from flat to the crimp section. It took a lot of wrong diagnostics by me to find it. Now it is my 23 year old GLTA - same thing- main FL just broken not burnt but seems to be the cause of my voltage spike or surge that has some expensive car and equipment damage and taking a while to find and fix what damage it has done, until then I can't drive it.

Come back in here and tell me you done it and what you found.

Jonno

I can second this, I put a battery in the wrong way (stupid i know)

Turns out that whoever did the fusible links last time didnt put in the correct load link for the battery - running 1.25 or something instead of the black 2.25 i think it is link.

The links perish away easily when cars are 20 + years old and cause all sorts of problems.

If you hunt around at the wreckers or super cheap auto you can replace this fusible links with a bif fuse. It is kind of hard to explain but it has spade bits that fit perfectly in the original fuse holder. Takes car of the problem for good.

Added bonus you can look through the top and see if they are blown.

Or do what I think SuBaRiNo has done on Hatchie - replace the fuseable links with some sort of circuit breaker... No need to carry new fuses then, just pop the bonnet and flick a switch

Cheers

Bennie

I have got a sample of the more modern fusible link, the coloured plastic box with a clear top enclosing the link female terminal , not the male terminal ones. . Going by colours, black to match the black original FL, I am not sure if the ratings are correctly matched. The manuals only seem to state 1.25mm cross section diameter of the wire for the black - no AMP rating, yet the new style box is rated at 80A 32V. Thought 80A was a bit high - that's landcruser glow plug rating!

Also wondering if 32V rating means that at 12V the 80A rating changes too like going too high?

answer is it is OK to use 32V in 12V applications looks like Amps stay the same

http://www.circuitprotection.ca/fuseology.html

steptoe wrote:I have got a sample of the more modern fusible link, the coloured plastic box with a clear top enclosing the link female terminal , not the male terminal ones. . Going by colours, black to match the black original FL, I am not sure if the ratings are correctly matched. The manuals only seem to state 1.25mm cross section diameter of the wire for the black - no AMP rating, yet the new style box is rated at 80A 32V. Thought 80A was a bit high - that's landcruser glow plug rating!

Also wondering if 32V rating means that at 12V the 80A rating changes too like going too high?

I was at the wreckers the other day and a 1983 sports wagon had a very interesting set of fusable links 2 ford 30 amp fuses and a 60 amp fuse for the engine side of things ( I would say)

I was having issues with my links and Ive tried this fix I was worried that 60 amps was too high but after reading this post it seems they will be ok (I have a 40 amp fuse for the engine Im going to try when the rain stops)

TOONGA

i totally replaced all of mine with circuit breakers. Tooooo easy

Alex could you give me a link to these circuit breakers as that was my other choice but the ones Ive found must be 22 karat gold as they want 80 bucks a breaker and when you times that by 3 wifey says no

TOONGA

i've had trouble lately with corrosion of the fusible link connections causing them to get hot and melt.

spoke to an auto sparky about what i could use to replace that whole fl box, and he suggested circuit breakers, but that was going to be obscenely expensive, so i'm sticking with the newer plastic-cased sort of fls that plug straight in. Narva 53030 and 53060,and new terminals and better wiring to them.

Btw, the fuses section of the narva book says what the current ratings of the old different coloured fl wires are.

Dane.

are these the 3 red and green wires near the battery?

yes that would be them a positive wire from the battery goes in at the bottom then through the 3 links and the power then runs off to different areas in the car

TOONGA

Yeah we have a similar problem in the red brumby. regularly blowing fuses. I'd be keen on the circuit breaker system and would love more explanation:)

TOONGA wrote:Alex could you give me a link to these circuit breakers as that was my other choice but the ones Ive found must be 22 karat gold as they want 80 bucks a breaker and when you times that by 3 wifey says no

TOONGA

Heres an idea for you Toonga, ive bought circuit breakers for as little as 5.00 in an automatic, resetable tends to cost more, and there avail in several different brands, heres an example

http://www.colehersee.com/catalog_top/index.htm

any large electrical house or parts store should have

ill give a detailed resposne when i get home tonight. Should hae some pics also

alex

still waiting for Alex's update seeing as though you are online now ?

I need to look up the Narva books to find the colour code conversions if any

Those automatic reset circuit breakers are about ten bucks at supercheap BTW

Here is a link to a fusable link wire colour chart with specs

http://www.narva.com.au/products/browse/fuse-link-wire

It is a start to understanding but need a direct conversion to be sure

http://www.narva.com.au/products/browse/metal-manual

metal manual resettables

thanks to great webiste at Narva !

You should be able to get them cheaper directly from Ashdown-Ingrams.
You can find the closest branch here:
http://www.ashdown-ingram.com.au/contactus.html

?? you noticed the similarity their invoices have to repco invoices lately? SCA have auto reset ones in stock maybe they can order in ?

i have had my car just die and after some looking and moving wires found it