Replacing my fusebox
Discussion
Trabitha the Trabant spent a few years (10) in a shipping container with only mice for company before I saved her.
Before I got her, someone had been 'replacing' the wiring loom. Now, it's not a complicated car and her fusebox only has 8 ceramic 8amp fuses. But it's a bloody fire hazard...
Above the fuses is the 'loom' which needs some loom tape on it. I accept that makes things a lot worse looking. Anyway, the East Germans in their wisdom thought 8 fuses were enough and decided to piggy back stuff. So for example fuse 8 (far right) has responsibility for wiper motor, radio, charge light, and brake lights. These are all fed either side by a screw that crimps the wires. There used to be a black opaque fusebox lid once upon a time, but that has long since disappeared.
My plan is to replace the fusebox with one of these that takes modern blade fuses (I assume replace the old 8amp with 7amp blades?) and I was wondering the best way to attach perhaps four wires to one spade connection on each side of the fuse?
Of course the other option is to go for half as many wires per fuse, but double up the fuses, by getting two 8 way fuse boxes instead of one?
Before I got her, someone had been 'replacing' the wiring loom. Now, it's not a complicated car and her fusebox only has 8 ceramic 8amp fuses. But it's a bloody fire hazard...
Above the fuses is the 'loom' which needs some loom tape on it. I accept that makes things a lot worse looking. Anyway, the East Germans in their wisdom thought 8 fuses were enough and decided to piggy back stuff. So for example fuse 8 (far right) has responsibility for wiper motor, radio, charge light, and brake lights. These are all fed either side by a screw that crimps the wires. There used to be a black opaque fusebox lid once upon a time, but that has long since disappeared.
My plan is to replace the fusebox with one of these that takes modern blade fuses (I assume replace the old 8amp with 7amp blades?) and I was wondering the best way to attach perhaps four wires to one spade connection on each side of the fuse?
Of course the other option is to go for half as many wires per fuse, but double up the fuses, by getting two 8 way fuse boxes instead of one?
Tyre Smoke said:
Anyway, the East Germans in their wisdom thought 8 fuses were enough and decided to piggy back stuff. So for example fuse 8 (far right) has responsibility for wiper motor, radio, charge light, and brake lights.
Not unusual, especially at the time. My Firenza (and all other HC Viva variants) only have four. On those, the combined fuse box and bulkhead connector uses a common feed to multiple pins top and bottom to provide fused power to the various circuits. I put a similar fusebox to the one you're looking at on mine when I added relays to the headlamps, and I recall struggling to crimp two wires into a single spade connector. It’s possible to get staggered blade connectors - where the female socket has another male attached - if you’re using those then I’d heat shrink over the mechanical joints to try to make it more secure.
A better option would probably be a fuse box with screw terminals for fitting crimped loops as below
A better option would probably be a fuse box with screw terminals for fitting crimped loops as below
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