The Infamous Series 2 Fusebox

Hi Stan,doing the blade conversion today..can you tell me,were your fuse value conversions satisfactory?
Cheers,Pete (see you on facebook,lol)

Good for you, Pete....you won't regret it.

Yes, no problem....not had to up any of the ratings, and not had any blow so far. There....I've said it now, haven't I? ;)

Cheers,
Stan
 
I look forward (NOT!) to getting into this area soon with a 3500S. Just to put things in perspective, below are pics of front and rear of a Porsche 928 fuse board, early model with bullet fuses. I am in the final stages of converting mine to Blade fuses with some soldering involved....on 34 fuse holders.
First impetus was a failed pump relay, and a visible spark at the fuse holder. At least all the incoming and outgoing leads are connected by plugs!
gEppWAR.jpg

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jp
 
sheesh . was thinking up upgrading to Blade fuses but keep putting it off. car is over 40 years old and still on original fuse box. hhmm .why change whats never gone wrong versus others having issues and peace of mind. think I might opt for 2 x6 way blade fuse box and book in for mental health check after a week .ought to be about ling enough to have driven me mad as well aware limited room and length of wires issues. however glove box is currently out ..so might bite bullet and go for it.
 
My plan is to offload the high current items to relays - headlights and horn are high on the list. Also useful to forestall problems is to check the tightness and cleanliness of the fuseholders and fuse ends, and give all contacts a touch of something like Deoxit to improve conductivity. Once I get to examine the fuseholder in detail I will see how hard it might be to convert to blade fuses, and advise - the wiring at the back seems to be a major issue. Will look for a spare unit to experiment on.
 
My fuse box did this a few years ago......
IMAG0011 (2).jpgIMAG0011.jpg
This was the headlight fuses and I fixed it by adding some external blade fuses like this.....

IMAG0012.jpg

It has been a satisfactory fix now for some years. I believe that my problem was because I fitted a halogen headlight conversion which virtually doubles the current requirement. I don't know why this seems to happen though in general for other fuses? Maybe it is just headlight ones that are affected? I don't really believe the imperial/metric fuse idea as we have been using metric fuses for thirty years or more, and in practice they have a very small contact area anyway. Maybe they always melted, but you would have thought if it was common back in the days of production, then Rover might have done something about it in terms of a recall rather than have their new cars go up in flames all over the place!! Of course it could be to do with additional current required due to the lovely bullet connectors all over the wiring looms corroding away merrily?? Who knows!
 
Ah yes. Been there, done that! My fusebox melted at the headlight fuses without me yet having upgraded to halogen. Hey ho.
 
Hate to keep harping on the 928 electrics, but I think the problems are similar - slow creeping degradation of contacts. The 928 forum at rennlist has an electrical maintenance check list - recommendations based on years of experience - to be performed ANNUALY. Locate all ground connections, open/undo fixings, clean until bright, Deoxit, tighten fixings; remove each fuse, clean contacts and the socket (where possible), clean, Deoxit, refit. Same with all relay blades. I burnt out 2 fuel pump relays before I found the pump fuse socket sparking , and started on my blade fuse conversion project. 928s go back to 1979, so they are not much younger than the P6s, and used bullet fuses (with much smaller contacts than our glass units) until 1985 but electrical problems are endemic in all years.
 
At least, compared with the 928, the P6 has a very simple electrical system, therefore it is much easier to trace faults and generally keep up with required maintenance.
 
My fuse box has some melting going on at the headlight fuses....enough distortion to push the fuse top outwards. Re the RTC1372 fuse kit - they seem to have leads ending in female bullet connectors - do these just connect up to males on the loom?
Also... I dont have a heated rear window switch installed (but the window is heated), and there are two male bullets floating free on blue/yellow wires - are these the likely culprits waiting for a switch? Wiring says output of switch is NY - Brown/Yellow?
 
From vaultsman's pics on P2 it looks like the incoming wire connectors form one side of the fuse 'socket' - correct ? Would one be able to connect these ends into a female spade socket in a rework of the fuse panel? Any idea why the RTC1372 kit has female bullet connectors on its fly leads? My thought is to cut the bullet females off the kit wires, and fit female spade sockets to make an easy install of RTC1372..????
thanks
 
The female bullets on the kit are probably regular sleeves pushed over male bullets on the wires. Surely it would be less hassle to cut off the wires off the old fuse box and fit a male bullet and then plug into the new fuse box as intended by Rover.
If you are worried about the bullet connection being another source of a bad joint and future corrosion have a look at these.......
Buy Heat shrink butt connector UL-recognized online
You push a bared wire into each end and heat with a heat gun, the sleeve shrinks and grips the wires and the solder ring in the middle solders the wires together. They come in different sizes and are brilliant for a compact fool proof joint.
 
Yes! Have some of those low temp solder connectors. Thats a good solution, thanks for reminding me.
Once the fuse block is unscrewed from the bulkhead is there much slack wire available ? The bundle disappears up and left, but can much be pulled ?
thanks
 
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It is my understanding from reading other peoples experience that there is minimal slack on the wiring, I am in the fortunate position of having a pristine ( at the moment ) fusebox so have not had to investigate replacement.
 
Not a lot of slack in the wiring loom, and the wires harden and become brittle with age. When my fuse box melted at the headlamp fuses I painstakingly replaced the damaged fuse box with a straight replacement, but added separate fuses (modern bladed type in a tidy waterproof little rubber casing) for the headlamps.
 
Read the posts about the fusebox troubles with interest as my fuses, in particular headlamp and heater motor get really hot and lights don't come on etc. unless you waggle the fuse. Contacts were clean, fusebox not burnt. So bought a set of 1 1/4 inch fuses from ebay, cleaned the contacts again and replaced all the fuses. However I noticed that some were not a good fit even after bending the contacts, I then noticed that each contact has a small square hole both at the top and the bottom next to the brass contact. So in a moment of inspiration (or stupidity) I carefully screwed by hand a 1/2" woodscrew a little way into this hole and lo and behold the fuse became a tight fit. I therefore repeated this at the top and then on all the remaining fuses, 24 screws in all, finally tightening up each screw with a small screwdriver just a few more turns. Unbelievably everything worked. You can see the square holes quite clearly in the photos that Vaultsman is displaying. Too soon to tell if this bodge is successful, when you see an advert for a burnt out 2200 SC then you will know it failed. Will append photo soon
 
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