woodrat

OK, so after almost two weeks of not having a truck due to the blown oil cooler, I finally got her going well enough for a test drive today. Went down to the store to get a celebratory beverage and then I was going to come home and do the final rinse on the radiator and put the anti freeze in and be back working again tomorrow.

I got back home and was sitting in the driveway listening to the sweet sounds and went to release the park brake so I could move closer to the shop and

...Phht!

She just quits. It's the dang fusible links again! Except now there's hardly even a stub of the old wiring harness to resplice to. The FLs that I put in there the last time are fine, it's just that the only thing to splice them to was the stubs of the old FLs, and those stubs are all crumbly and weak. It broke loose in two places.

I know the last time I posted my annoyed feelings about FLs a lot of people chimed in and said that replacing them with fuses would be a Bad Idea and that the engineers had their reasons for using FLs that weren't just about cheapness. But if the vehicle is supposed to last 500K miles, then things should be repairable. The cab shouldn't crack to pieces and leak, the door hinges shouldn't poke through the flimsy door. And electrical components that are desgined to fail to protect circuits should be easily replaced. This failure wasn't due to a overload, it was due, just like last time, to old and crumbly connections. Chrysler doesn't even carry the FL harness (which would be annoying enough to replace anyway), you have to buy the WHOLE truck harness.

grrrr!

OK, rant over! The bright side is that it happened in my driveway, rather than somewhere out on the road where I will be in a few days with this truck....

For now, though, I'm going to have to find a way to resplice the FLs, since I don't have the time or dough to do the proper thing - convert to real fuses..

alborada

Which fuseable link was it this time? (color)?

woodrat

Well, my links are mostly grey now since I replaced them. I couldn't get all the different sizes so I went with 22 gauge which was close There is a small pinkish wire on the front of the truck side of one link and then a larger wire going into the harness towards the firewall that has two links going into it. It didn't fail because of anything electrical, just the crumbly feeble connections fell apart.

I'm going to try to solder the connections as best as I can and then sit down with my fancy new FSM and try to trace down what size fuses to use as replacements. Then go to a junk yard and find a decent fuse box to use.

Micaiahfied

i put in an AGU fuse box like they use in car stereo systems. you can get the maxi fuse boxes too. then i used a breaker for the line from the alternator. many miles and no problems.

woodrat

Is that a self resetting breaker, or a manual reset?

Not familiar with the AGU fuse box.. any links or pix?

thanks!

Micaiahfied

i'd go with maxi fuses if you do it. they seem to be what replaced the fusible links anyways, i was in a bind and the agu is what was available. as for the breaker you can find them at you're local auto parts store. manual reset

http://dw.com.com/redir?tag=lst&dest...d=6449&lop=lst

torquefan

The way I repair this is to go to the large cable just upstream of the fusible link "manifold", trim the insulation from 1/2 inch of it, wrap a piece of wire around it and solder it to the large cable. Now you have something solid to attach your new fusible link to.

farmer0_1

don't feel to bad about the rant woodrat i have been down the same road on some of my older vehicals and somtimes you want to just go buy new but i can't stand debt so i don't . so i keep extra drivers around to switch to. right now my 84 chev 6.2 ac pulley is grinding when cold just put a rebuilt pump on four years ago. my 84 mercedes 300d turbo has somthing going on with the steering i need to check and as said in previous post my 300b jd tractor is in the farm shop for a overhaul. kinda feel like i am drowning in it some days. six months from now no big deal. if you go to auto wrecker for fusable links look at any 6.2 diesel down by the starter some long ones on these. don't know the rating with out looking . good luck.

woodrat

Yeah, I've always got a spare vehicle but never a spare truck. I've been even looking at older 6.9 Fords (shh!) for a spare, but I will more likley just fix the timing chain on my 82 toyota that's been sitting up in the pasture for two years. It's not a tow monster or a diesel, but it is a pretty dang good truck for it's size and age.

I'll get this thing fixed one way or another. For now, I will just figure out a splice/jerry rig of some kind but will be looking at fuses in the long run.

I know what you mean about drowning. between boats and vehicles, that must be half of my income sometimes...

PapeCAT

Welllllll the vehicle aka body and chassis was/is engineered to make it out of warranty! We are lucky to have an engine that was meant to go far longer... But even so, the 1st gens were overbuilt in other areas, only because they weren't sure how long things would last. the body panels are thicker gauge from '74- '80... the best/strongest frame/chassis is from 91.5-'93 (concerning first gens)

98 12v

I can say from personal experiance that the fusable links are there for a reason. I deleated them completly from my old 72 IH Scout II and had a major electrical meltdown. I guess they knew what they were doin after all. The fuses sounds like it should work well. Keep us posted as i am interested in seeing how this works out for ya.

sdstriper

I too had a lesson in electrical fire fighting, bypassed links in 73' Datsun 240 Z. I bet fusable links get replaced incorrectly alot, and people learn a lessen alot...

Boatnik

It is just my opinion that a properly designed system using fuses is better than fusible links when it comes to protecting and servicing a DC system. There should be nothing wrong with mounting a fuse block in the engine compartment and running the harness through that. The use of self reseting circuit breakers should really be thought out prior to installation. If you were to install a automatic reset on a circuit that stays "hot" all the time, you could be asking for trouble. They will continue to reset themselves until something melts down or they fail. That being said, I use them on my headlights. I would rather risk a melt down there than be running down an unlit country road and loose all lighting until I can stop and put in a fuse. A good use of automatic reset plug in breakers is trouble shooting a grounded circuit. I use a 15 amp just for that and the wires still warm up alot.

woodrat

I'm not going to delete them completely, just replace them with fuses. According to the wiring diagram in the FSM, the circuit with the TS relay has its own FL AND a fuse. I'm not sure from what engineering standpoint that would be necessary...

It won't be right away, but I will convert to fuses and I will post a thread about it when I do.

Chrisreyn

Wouldnt it be possible to cut the wire right before the "split" where it fans out to the FL's and connect it to a bus-bar? Then hook the FL's to teh other side, and have the wiring fan out this way instead? this would allow for getting rid of the rotted wiring and still keep the FL's as the circuit protection?
Just a thought.....