All My Circuits [are borked too]

[tomatofiasco]

after reading hazwans thread i looked in my fusebox too. and what did i find?

http://diversion.deadbored.net/img/fused.jpg

http://diversion.deadbored.net/img/30amp.jpg


EUREKA! this would be that "soldering" smell that regularly but intermittently wafts up my nose when im driving home at night. i removed the fuse, the worn inscription reads "30A"

i tried the lights: -sidelights -brakelights -indicators -lowbeams -...

no high beams. when i pull the lever i get darkness, so this fuse is THE direct inline high-beam circuit fuse, right? and thats probably the highest-wattage accessory in the car.

when i got home i opened the fusebox, which was quite warm, and brushed my finger over the fuses, all of which were slightly warm except this one, which was too hot to touch. i have a 5th light, a big halogen spot on the bumper, which is relay-triggered by the high-beam circuit but wired separately to the battery as far as i can tell [by a previous owner but i liked it]. i turned it off anyway for the trip home, so that leaves only the 4 normal ones...

which arent quite normal i suppose. when one died, i swapped them like a lot of other stuff in my car for the 1981 equivalents. i dont think they were rated substantially higher though... maybe 5w more. is that enough to melt fuseboxes, considering its really the same car?

the wires leading to and from the fuse are ok. so i guess its the fuse itself getting really hot... but not blowing. what are your high-beam fuses inscribed with, and do they get hot? if i put in a bigger fuse, it'll just melt the next weakest link, right? it shouldn't be melting anything at all, should it?

plz help, for the good of nocturnal wildlife.

[Ichiban]

I have the same glass tube style fuses in my toyota, and I've had an intermittent problem that goes like this: All of a sudden, a particular circuit stops functioning. If I grab the fuse and slide it back and forth in the holder, it starts working again. A test light verifies that when it malfunctions, either power is not getting from the holder to the fuse, or from the fuse to the other holder. I believe corrosion between the contacts breaks the circuit, and moving the fuse around clears away the corrosion.

Possibly you had some current-flow-inhibiting corrosion on your fuse contacts, which caused heating and the melted mess you have now?

[Hazwan]

I thought thats the turn signal fuse? Headlights and high beams are the upper right 4 fuses, which yours only have 2 on the upper right? The originals should be 10A, 30A is way too much and that explains why it overheated and didn;t blow.

I'd add relays to your headlight/high beam circuit. My combination swtich harness under the steering column melted :p

Also I've noticed all other fuses are warm, but not that hot.

And yeah my starter died this morning. Requires a slight tap before it cranks.. oh well.

[79cord]

So it looks like the earliest Accords also had a different fuse-box layout as well; by '79 each of the headlights had its own 10A fuse along the 4top right fuse positions,
Without air-con the biggest (20A) fuse being for the heater.

Though the fact the fuse barely even fitted in the fuse box sugests it was never meant to be there... & its rating could have easily fried half your wiring... I guess there still has to be a short somewhere for it to be demanding so much current.

[Civic Accord Honda]

damn i think thats wayyy to high of a fuse...

[tomatofiasco]

thanks for the inputs guys! i thought it was a very large amount of amps too.

but.

i think its the right fuse on closer inspexxion. i checked my partsmobile fusebox, which is in perfect condition and an 81. as you know it has separate fuses for high and low beams on each side. the high beam fuses are both 15A, so together that makes 30A.

guyhatesmycar said the exact same thing my dad did when i showed him - dodgey contact causing overheating. and the contact is very tanished and dodgey. AND only one end of the fuse holder is melted. i didnt think about that at first, but that must indicate the heat comes from between the end of the wire and the end of the glass fuse [glass being a crap heat conductor], which = bad contact.

its a pretty reliably dodgey contact though. i'll wire brush it and get a new fuse and see if i can prod the terminal back into place with a soldering iron. the nights are very dark at the moment and my low beams are very low.

[Hazwan]

You better off with relay setup. Way brighter too and less strain to the already strained electrical system the 1gee had. You still have stock sealed beam lights?

[2ndGenGuy]

I think the problem with those glass fuses is the way they're built. The fuse itself (that piece inside the glass) is soldered to the metal caps on the ends. I think they wind up getting weak over time and with a little heat the solder melts. Then you get bad contacts inside the fuse, where you can't see it. I think the best bet is to replace those fuses on a regular basis. Just a theory anyways.

[Dr_Snooz]

My '76 regularly melted the A/C fuse. I tried different fuses and even crimped in a different connector, but it consistently melted the end off the fuse after a few minutes of blower fan operation. I never did figure out what was going on.

Good luck with that.

[Hazwan]

My '76 regularly melted the A/C fuse. I tried different fuses and even crimped in a different connector, but it consistently melted the end off the fuse after a few minutes of blower fan operation. I never did figure out what was going on.

Good luck with that.

I guess thats common problem with 1geez, I've seen one at the junkyard with melted and repaired A/C fuse connection. Mine has been modded with weird looking relay (I think - but it only has 2 connectors).

When I switched on my A/C even on low, my voltmeter dropped to 12v and the fuse is getting way too warm to my liking. I'm pretty sure theres something wrong with the A/C circuit.

I've took apart the fan relay in the engine bay and cleaned them up, replaced every possible connectors and I have no idea what to do next. Both cooling fans might be old, sucking too much juice perhaps?

I think I'm going to add a relay for the A/C clutch. There a huge spark when I connect the wire directly to 12v.

And yeah working with 27 year old wiring is fun!

[tomatofiasco]

yeah i know, especially when they have been "expertly upgraded" by morons with crimping sets like the previous owner of my car apparently was / is. he lost ALL THE SCREWS he removed. and he didnt replace most of them either >< so i spent over an hour fishing for retainers and getting tangled in dusty wire bundles and getting an spinal injury.

i could rewire the high beams, just branch them off the existing spotlight. cant be bothered though, i think i'll repair the fusebox and buy a nice NEW [not 30 years old] fuse or two for it. theres another 30A fuse in there and a 25A one as well, and neither of them have melted at all.

[2ndGenGuy]

Well I can now confirm my suspicion. Blower motor quit working the other night. Fuse looked fine, but when I pulled it out of the fuse panel look what happened:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2062/2490660669_30036c2976.jpg?v=0 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jgturk/2490660669/)

As you can see, the solder joint melted long before the fuse blew. I believe this is why we moved away from the glass fuses.

[carotman]

A bad contact between the fuse and the connector could cause overheating. The added resistance is transformed into heat.

[offthahook]

Personally, I replace all the glas tube fuses every few years. The caps do tend to separate from the barrel, esp. in hot climates. The metal also tends to bend at some pretty crazy angles inside the glass. Old school fuses are teh win for sure...

[tomatofiasco]

well i put a new fuse in, expoxied the carrier back in place and cleaned up the contacts on the fuse and the carrier... and its still getting really hot, though perhaps not as hot as before.

and its still getting hot at one end, which i think is weird.

so going ahead further beyond this point moving forward towards progressing into the future, as they say in parliament, i can solder one or both ends of the fuse in, or retrofit that particular fuse carrier with a plastic blade-type fuse.

my cat and i shall have to deliberate on this weighty decision.

[AccordB20A]

lol @ the fail fuses. ill remember to replace them with a 3g fuse board if i ever own a car with glass fuses:P. this is good info to know. had a car audio fuse that did that once