On Saturday, I went to get groceries with the mini truck. I made three stops while I was out, the first two stops being uneventful. At the third stop, I got my groceries, got back in the truck, put on my seat belt, key in the ignition, foot on the clutch, turned the key and absolutely nothing happened. I checked the turn signals, hazard switch, lights and had no response from anything. I have had this happen before, so I got out and took a look at the battery. In addition to the larger 8ga wire leading from the positive battery terminal, there is a secondary wire, maybe 16ga, with a fuse connected to it. I found that the end of the wire had turned turquoise with the copper corroding, until the wire was no more. Not having any tools in the truck, I had to go back inside, buy a small spool of wire, a package of crimp connectors, a wire stripper and two pair of the cheapest pliers I could get. Almost $20 worth of supplies for a 10 cent fix. I'm thinking of replacing the entire length of wire, making use of a new blade-type fuse instead of the existing glass cylindrical fuse and a nice gold-plated ring connector. And probably stainless steel mounting hardware. Since the wire disappears into a harness about 10" up, can anyone tell me where the other end of this wire goes, whether it goes to a single point or if it branches off to multiple components, and the amp rating of the fuse?
I recently had a truck where there was three wires coming off + side of battery. The big wire was going to stater. The other two went into wiring harness like you side. Where ever they went they supplied 12v to everything but dash lights and dome light. In my mind these wires fed direct to fuse block under dash. My problem was that the copper wire was burned up inside the outter rubber casing about 4" from + battery post. Took a number of hrs. to figure it out because outside plastic/rubber looked good. The first 5" of wire was fusible link wire. There is a difference between a general power wire and a fusible link wire. From what I can tell the general 12v power wire will have a hard plastic cover where as the fusible link wire will have more of a rubbery outside material. Fusble link wire acts like a fuse, when to much current or short it is designed to burn into before damaging something farther down the line. I know this is the long answer but but guys keep in mind some trucks will have fusible links and its a bitch to figure it out if they dont burn completely into. After the fact the owner told me he hooked the jumper cables up wrong. Which burned the wire up. The fusible link wire did its job. It protected everything on the line.
CORRECT ! Those of us used to the older American way of having the vehicle circuits originate at the starter solenoid have to accept the foreign method (and I think the newer US method) of the vehicle circuits originating from the + Terminal. Just have to adjust our thinking a bit and pay close attention to detail. The major pitfall to this method is, as has been mentioned, corrosion of the wiring is more of a possibility due to the proximity of that feed wire to the battery fumes. Note too that some manufacturers of the fusable links will have a small tab molded onto the wire covering to make it easily identifiable and will have a different "feel" than normal wiring. Keep in mind too, that the battery is charged back through that wire/fusable link. Fred
