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Location: McComb, Mississippi | I am looking to relieve some of the current draw through the headlight switch by adding a relay. I cannot find the thread that covers this , so I'm asking for some help on this. How would the relay be wired ? Also, any other improvement that can be made to the original harness? |
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Expert 5K+
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Location: Perth Australia | Depends on what your going to put through the relay?
Different circuits need different relays or ways of wiring the relay.
Your standard mini (hella or simillar) is 30=power, 87=load, 85=earth, 86=pos input (from the switch)
But this is really a loaded question as modifying circuits requires a knowledge of wiring circuits and wire gauge capacities ect and if you stuff it up, its not easy to fix and if it smokes up, it happens at the speed of light.
I was taught as an apprentice to "leave sleeping dogs lie" so if its fine, dont mess with it, if your wanting to add something (eg, driving lights), then help with that is easy
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Location: NorCal |
This is one of the more popular relay upgrades.
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Location: North Australia | I did this headlight wiring upgrade on my Imperial. I used a dual relay with built in fuses, heavy guage marine grade cables, HD plugs for the back of the globes and soldered all joints. The lights are very good once I found some reasonable quality quartz halogen globes from an Aussie ebay seller. The first incandescent ones I purchased locally were OK but blew both lows within hours, possibly because the voltage is up. I saw big advantages in increasing the lights brightness, they are very bright and make night driving easy!, plus reducing the amp load through the fuse box, light switch, ammeter, old cables etc. The only load on the original loom now is for the relay trigger. The voltage at the globes went from low 11,s to 14 Volts if I remember correctly. I mounted the relay in a small alloy box behind the grill to keep it dry and clean. Turned out a neat, easy, safety upgrade. The only problem was agonising over cutting the old loom, once I got over that the rest was easy.
Steve.
Edited by 60 Imp 2014-12-03 7:57 AM
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Extreme Veteran
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Location: West Jordan | I hate to share this after the fact but there is no need to cut the harness. If you Google “ceramic headlight wire adapter harness” you will find a harness that has male and female connectors, you can cut it in half so it gives you both ends.
We use them quite a bit because we build a lot of H4 harnesses, which is not a good idea for use with a generator since the bulbs are usually 55 watt. I am going to run H4 bulbs on our DeSoto, but if there is enough interest in this we can look at building a plug and play conversion harness.
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Location: Perth Australia | Those adaptor plugs are good, but I think you will find theres not a lot of room behind the headlights in most of these cars
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Extreme Veteran
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Location: West Jordan | You know of a vehicle that has a lot of room behind the headlight?
We cut them in half and build a conversion harness, when finished we wind up with one extra male connector. The other male connector plugs into a factory headlight socket that can be moved to a location in the bottom of the headlight bucket or outside it. Then we use the 2 new female sockets for the headlights. So for a 4 light set up you would need 4 adaptors and you would have 3 leftover male plugs.
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Expert 5K+
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Location: Perth Australia | Yep
Modern cars that dont have headlight buckets 
Same sort of plugs are used in some of the driving light kits that are available
I cut the wiring and insert the twin headlight relays at the cut point so the firewall side of your cut is the input to the relay and the radiator support side of the cut is your output, that way, you use the exising wiring and all you need to add is the power supply to the relay and an earth wire (depending on the twin relay you get)
Using an adaptor plug system is (sort of) easier as it would be mostly plug and play, but will add extra wiring to the engine bay, some of which will be a duplicate (left to right crossover) of whats there.
Headlight relays are a great addition as you will find that with relays, even your standard sealed beam lights will generally improve their brightness by 20% and by fitting the relays, you are short cutting the leanth of wire the power for the lights has to travel and it also allows a moderate increase in bulb size and removes a lot of the electrical loading from the switches
Just to add to this
With the addition of headlight relays, this will also reduce the amount of current (amps) in the main power wire to the headlight switch, this is a really good thing and you will probably find other things will be better than they were when the lights were on because of this (heater fan, wipers ect)
Edited by ttotired 2014-12-03 6:27 PM
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Extreme Veteran
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Location: West Jordan | OK, but modern cars already have H4 or better bulbs, all the cars we build conversion harness have buckets.
Honestly I don’t care, cut the harness or don’t, my only point was if you don’t want to cut it, you don’t half to.
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Elite Veteran
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Location: Edmonton, Alberta | Hi Christian......
The wiring diagram that Chisler posted makes complete sense to me. However, ttotired gives some pretty sage advice "....let sleeping dogs lie". I'm curious at to why you want to reduce the current load on the headlight switch. Is there an underlying problem you're trying to solve? Something to remember is that the headlight circuit when originally designed was made to handle the current load for your headlights. Owing a modded car myself (and all my efforts in my "caretaking" is to remove mods), has kind of proven to me that mods are a pain in the behind, so I'd strongly recommend leaving things as-is, unless there's an underlying issue that you're trying to solve.
Don't know if your a country music fan... Johnny Cash wrote a song called "One Piece at a Time" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2riRAGzNzvQ
This song is how I feel about my Plymouth when I get to the parts counter sometimes. I have '57, '58, '61', '62', '69, '78 Plymouth....for now.....I'm going for a '57 '58 when I'm done
Of course, if there is an underlying issue, let's have at 'er! Ultimately, I'd discourage folks from doing these kinds of mods unless there's a compelling reason to. Reducing the current load on a circuit in itself, of course, is never a bad idea, but electrical mods can often come back to haunt. As me about my auxiliary gauges...
Edited by sconut1 2014-12-03 10:41 PM
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Location: Ontario, Canada | Shortly after starting to restore these cars (57/58Dodges) I responded to an ad. And bought a fabulous, rust free , low mileage car to drive for fun. I did just that for a couple years. One day I promised a dear OLD friend a ride in it but when I backed it out of the garage, got out to close the door, the underhood smoke started to pour out. The wiring harness was a melt-down before I got the battery disconnected.
I tried to buy a new harness. NOBODY HAD ONE AND NOBODY WAS MAKING THEM. I was already OEM connected through my trailer mfg. business, SO, I made my own harness using OEM terminals. It was easy. I already had an OEM account with Packard/Delphi. Later I opened an account with Amp (now Tyco). I then collected all my patterns and got to work reproducing these wiring harnesses.
Obviously these cars performed very well when new. The trick is to restore the "new". The answer to me was real simple; " rebuild all the switches, use all new wire and all new terminals". Guess what? My OEM headlights are bright and everything works just fine at night with the A/C and blower on high while idling at a traffic light!!!
In 1966 Chrysler started using fusible links. To make a very long and complicated story simple, all one needs is a 9" length of 16ga. fusible link wire between the starter solenoid/relay and the power supply to the car and a similar 20ga. one for the power to the horns. Napa sells both!
These fusible links are to protect from catastrophic situations like a direct short. They work very well. I use them in all my cars!!!
Greg
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Expert
Posts: 2312
Location: Arizona | Is there an advantage of fusible links rather than installing a fuse holder and using something like a maxi-fuse? |
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Expert 5K+
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Location: Perth Australia | Relative invisability, fuseable links look more natural in your engine bay than fuse holders
Electrically, no real difference, mecanically is where fuseable links can let you down as they can break through vibration after a few years of harsh abuse (eg 4x4), but it does happen in passenger cars as well
Just remember, these fuses (whatever style you use) must be as close to the battery as possible
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Extreme Veteran
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Location: West Jordan | ttotired - 2014-12-04 2:12 PM mecanically is where fuseable links can let you down as they can break through vibration after a few years of harsh abuse (eg 4x4) Harsh abuse? I would say if you look at them wrong. I try to avoid them when possible. Makes me hate places like Pebbel Beach. |
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Location: Perth Australia | I dont know what the pebble beach reference is?
A rough beach that people drive on?
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Location: West Jordan | The home of the top Concours d'Elegance, a place that stuffy up tight people gather in August to pontificate on the correct over spray of a trunk and things like that. |
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Location: Perth Australia | Oh, the purist convention
I dont think they would like me much
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Location: West Jordan | LOL, well then you are in good company.
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Location: McComb, Mississippi | Hey, sorry guys for the late response. When I was home, I was not having any problems with the wiring at all. I was just thinking that adding two headlight relays would just relieve some of the load on the headlight switch. Also I think that adding a few fusible links would be a very smart decision. |
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Location: Central New York | I'm picking up some good ideas here. |
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Location: Invermere B.C. Canada - Rocky Mountains | Forgotten 61 - 2014-12-05 4:27 PM I'm picking up some good ideas here. :)
Well, at risk of being scolded for something, here are my two last projects.
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PICT0007 (845 x 634).jpg (118KB - 133 downloads)
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Location: Ontario, Canada | plymouth - 2014-12-05 1:09 AM
Also I think that adding a few fusible links would be a very smart decision.
Here is a factory fusible link, 1966 Chrysler. Typical for quite a few years.
Greg
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Location: Ontario, Canada | The large eye terminal at the right connects to the starter relay or starter solenoid, depending on how the car is equipped. In other words, except for the starter motor, these two fusible links are the only connection between the battery and the rest of the car!
The reasons I can think of for the horns to be treated separately would be that some models may have only one horn while other models could have multiple horns. Also, I have been told that as the vibrating contact points in the horns start to burn and pit, resistance can greatly increase which would demand more power. Probably best to keep them as a separate circuit???
I stated above that I used fusible links on all my cars and that they worked. As I was collecting info and actual patterns for mid and late 60s wiring harnesses, I came across these fusible links. My sampling showed that Mother Mopar used them as early as some late production 1964 Imperials and by 65/66 they were used for all and used for many years. Perhaps even today!?
Thinking along the lines of "wiring improvements", I retrofitted fusible links to 57/58 Dodges. Shortly after installing them, I was driving my Regal, stopped at the house quickly to pick up something I had forgotten, jerked on the handbrake and was getting out the car door when the engine quit with a tiny puff of smoke from underhood!! What the hell!! The link had bubbled and burnt. NO evidence of anything else! It took me a long time to determine the cause. 57/59 Mopars had a 10ga. Power wire that ran from the starter relay/solenoid to the kick panel circuit breakers for elec. seat, windows etc. When I pulled on the handbrake, SOMEHOW that wire got jammed in the the notched tube of the handbrake and shorted out sufficient to burn the link!!
Without that link I don't suppose a WHOLE lot of damage would have occurred before it all self extinguished. BUT, what a neat introduction to the value of these links!
Here is a photo of the links installed in my car. Not Pebble Beach correct ---- but, not ugly either!
Greg
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Elite Veteran
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Location: Edmonton, Alberta | Well Christian, for what my $0.02 cents is worth, my suggestion to you is to, as I think someone else mentioned, is that I think you'd be better off "restoring" your car's headlight circuit rather than installing the relay. If it was my car, I'd grab the owner's manual and take a look at the wiring diagrams and then start by finding all the terminals and cleaning (i.e. sanding off corrosion) them. If you want to get fancy (and I would), use a DVOM and measure the resistance of each wire in the circuit. You should be seeing resistance levels around 0.04 ohms or less when you test. Now, wire length will affect this number, but if you're measuring resistance and you're finding a 2 ohm load on a chunk of wire, you're got a problem there. Also, when your doing this, if you find wires and the insulation is hard as a rock, or looking "crunchy" or is anything less than in good shape, I'd be inclined to replace those segments of wire as well.
By all means, investigate and install fusible links where they make sense. In fact, I think I may just do this myself with my own car while it's undergoing it's engine transplant project.
If you choose to go this route, In my opinion, the benefits will be that you have a car with a restored headlight circuit, and it's correct as far as original. The side benefit to this is if you ever have to go digging to troubleshoot a problem in the future, you won't have to deal with a bunch of stuff that's been "injected" into the original factory wiring. This will make troubleshooting a lot easier for you in the even that you ever have to do it, or if a new owner down the road needs to.
Edited by sconut1 2014-12-08 12:37 AM
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Location: McComb, Mississippi | Thanks for all of the replies. I think I'm just going to check the harness and resistance of each wire. I will add the fusible links for safety though. |
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Location: Ontario, Canada | LD3 Greg - 2014-12-06 12:46 Not Pebble Beach correct ---- but, not ugly either!
Greg
Well, not as ugly as a marine battery in an FL car!!! It was just temporary----- sorry about that!
Greg |
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Location: Perth Australia | Thats some heavy duty work you have done there Ray
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Location: Invermere B.C. Canada - Rocky Mountains | ttotired - 2014-12-08 11:36 PM Thats some heavy duty work you have done there Ray
Thank you, I really like wiring (obviously) , but I think I have pushed the bounders of acceptance as far as I can here, so I will not bore you with details of the fade dimming interior light module in the under seat unit. (I had to, it is the first old car that I have had, that the interior lights actually worked.  )
As far as the original posters question, I would like, with all due respect, disagree with those that recommend just reconditioning the stock system, the use of accessory relays for high and low beam is a great improvement and works especially well with upgraded headlights (Halogen) for these old eyes. |
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Extreme Veteran
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Location: West Jordan | I would agree with that disagree, we rebuild a lot of headlight switches that would not need to be rebuild if the owner had relays on the headlights and they are brighter.
I would also add that I wound ever run a fusible on my worst enemy. The first thing I do is change over to a blade fuse and we have even build concourse harnesses with a blade fuse hidden and the fusible there for looks only. They were phased out in the 90s and today there is not one single vehicle built with a fusible link from the factory. With 30 to 90 day turns on inventory, most non-NAPA stores are not stocking them.
Put it this way, it’s an imperfect world, would you rather find a way to NAPA as your classic car sit there on the side of the road and then spend 30 minutes repairing it or go to any auto parts store and replace the blade fuse in under 5 minutes with simple or no tools?
I have seen a vehicle that burned to the ground because the fusible link burned the insulation burned and exposed the wire, that hit the starter and started the fire, once it got into the battery cable it was all over. So I would use a blade if it were me.
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Location: Camptown PA | What size blade fuse do you use? What gauge wire goes from the battery to the main distribution point? |
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Expert 5K+
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Location: Perth Australia | Loaded question that one
It depends on what you have, or have done to the car.
To start with, the blade fuse to protect the main power wiring would not be the same physical size as your normal std fuse you would find in your late model car (about 3/4" wide), you would use the maxi blade fuse (about 1 1/2" wide)
For a stock electrical system (as in no a/c, no power windows ect) somewher around 60A and for a car thats got more gizmo's, around 80A
If I was going the fuse direction instead of a fuseable link, I would use whats called a "slow blow" fuse
They are a rectangular fuse with large prongs stucking out the bottom that can be bolted into a holder or can be done using a plug.
As for wire gauge, same thing, no need to change it unless your adding more accessories to the circuits (high current ones, not just another radio or a gps ect)
You can mathamatically work out how much current your car will draw, but if you get a relatively good amp meter to test with, you can turn everything on and see how much it draws, then add about 20% and that will be the size fuse you need (with respect to the wire its protecting, eg if you havnt upgraded the main supply wire and you have already overloaded it with extra accessories, a 100A fuse protecting a wire capable of carrying 60A isnt going to stop the wire burning out)
Whatever fuse type (or circuit breaker) you put in is far better than nothing at all (orriginal design) and if you ask 10 sparkies whats the best one, you will probably get 10 different answers, but certain circuits are better protected using different types of circuit protection, eg, headlights are better protected with an auto reset circuit breaker (as in whats in the headlight switch of most old cars) than a fuse because with a fuse, if its an intermittant short, the fuse will blow, leaving you potentially driving at 65mph in the middle of the night with no lights, where the circuit breaker will trip but then come back on (if the short went away) giving you at least the chance of seeing the tree your about to hit
Late model cars will use a fuse for the headlights, but they normally split the circuits into (at least) left and right, and sometimes upper and lower beam as well
This electric stuff can be a huge can of worms if you want to get right into it, thats why I get paid to do this stuff, I like worms
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Extreme Veteran
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Location: West Jordan | To that^ i would add this, it depends on if you have an alternator or generator. and if you are going to build the protection for that into it. On an alternator we run one power cable from the battery to the fuse then everything is powered from the fuse except the cable to the starter, that needs to run directly from the batter. This way the alternator is protected from short. However you can’t do that on a generator, the old trick for testing the generator is to pull the battery cable and it will keep running, something that should never be done on an alternator. So for a generator you would want 2 fuses. But if you are running an alternator and want to use one fuse for everything you would need to use a fuse one step higher than the amp rating of the alternator. When cold alternators produce more amps |
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Location: Edmonton, Alberta | Well Christan.... with apologies to William Shakespeare: "To mod, or not to mod, that is the question". I never cared for Frankenstein much, but that's just me. The mods suggested above are functional, to be sure, they're not something I'd be doing with my vehicle.
Edited by sconut1 2014-12-10 1:35 AM
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 524
Location: West Jordan | Well that is a strange choice of words. Why did Chrysler go to a gear reduction starter as much as 30 years before other companies? Because its better, the proof is today you can’t get a new car without a gear reduction starter. Here is a list of “functional” and a vast improvement.
Generator – alternator
Points – electronic
Direct wire – relays
Fusible link – blade fuse
Carburetion – fuel injection
I could do this for hours.
The point is had blade fuses and relays been available back in the day then they would have been on the car from the factory. The question is do you want a conversation piece that you drive now and then or a driver that can do road trips.
I would rather drive them and I do so on everything I build. I drove a 95% stock 32 Model A truck 50 miles at 55 to 65 MPH on a hot summer day, and I loved every minute of it. Not so much the 45 minutes at a rest stop as it was puking its guts out.
So decide what you, the car owner wants out of it, do your research, and do what best fits your needs. But if you are going to be a purist and risk it, don’t even think of installing a fire extinguisher in the trunk, they did not have access to them back then, and we want to keep it pure, right?
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Location: Invermere B.C. Canada - Rocky Mountains | ttotired - 2014-12-09 4:18 PM an auto reset circuit breaker [is better] than a fuse, the circuit breaker will trip but then come back on
WHAT HE SAID ! ……………… (even if extremely paraphrased) |
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Location: Edmonton, Alberta | I suppose that's the discussion here. Purist restoration, or not. I suppose Darren, that you'll have nightmares while I tell you that I'm ripping the 440 out of my car in favor of the original 318, with points ignition and 35A generator. This is all after I ripped the 15" mags and radials off while going with period correct 14" rims and Goodyear 14" Custom Bias-Ply tires. I also ripped off the 12" incorrect drum brakes in favor of the original 11" brakes.
I find your anti-purist comments, frankly laughable. If you want to build cars like they do on the Sunday morning Powerblock shows, power to you. They are modern, drive better, and do everything better that the original car. Go ahead....pick your favorite FL car, drop in a 383 Chevrolet stroker, a Tremec transmission, equip it with a Holley aftermarket fuel injection system, and tie the whole thing to a Ford 9" rear end. Add some goofy 17" wheels and you're obviously off to the races. You'll do everything I do better, in 2014 style.
But that's not the point.....
Doc Desoto said it best " I want the 50's driving experience". So do I. I want it to be 1957 when I get behind the wheel... as it should be. If I wanted 2014 style, I'd drive my pickup to car shows instead of my Fury.
The point is that Forward Look cars should be left as it is, or as close to as reasonable. Any idiot can buy bunch of aftermarket crap, bolt it on, and claim to be the weekend restoration hero at a car show. There's at least 10 '57 Chevys at every show I attend that fall into this category that I walk past and ignore on my way to see what the Studebaker guys have been up to while fabricating their own faithful OEM parts.
It's a little tougher to do an OEM restoration.....and I don't claim to be there yet either, but that's what separates the men from the boys.
Edited by sconut1 2014-12-11 3:31 AM
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Exner Expert 19,174 posts. Neil passed away 18 Sep 2015. You will be missed, Neil!
Posts: 19146
Location: bishop, ca | WOW; we all do some modifications to the cars that we drive...for various reasons of personal FUN, enjoyment, mental/physical exercise, and expression (ego)
and "safety".
There has to be some reason that prompts people to shoot animals for 'fun'/sport (because they CAN legally do that)....but not all
Sportsmen/ladies enjoy killing "Big Game", as being a "necessary" adjunct to their blood-sport addiction (NOT merely hunting for necessary table-food).
There's always Skeet-shooting and target shooting/archery.
"Personal expression" justifies almost anything, nowadays.
So, why do people hot-rod cars?
Because they can legally do so (while congratulating themselves on obtaining their results).
It IS a "Power Trip" for them....
See what I can do to this car of mine?
"modifications" run from installing radial tires....to Boyd Coddington's creations.
[And, BTW, I was PM'ed this thread, and asked for my opinion on car modifications, in general terms; I prefer car-mods to be
non-obvious, and complimentary to the car; honoring it, if you will, as opposed to "honoring" the person
who modified the car, .....so obviously]
Edited by d500neil 2014-12-11 4:38 AM
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Expert 5K+
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Location: Perth Australia | I have to pull you up on the relays Darren, they were and had been available long before our cars were made and mine (and I think the rest of them as well) had a horn relay , apart from the starter soliniod (which as you know, is a basic relay itself), but, without hurting the basic orriginality of the cars, putting main power circuit protection (whichever type you choose) is not a step away from orriginality, but should be one of the first things done to any old car that does not have any as a straight up insurance policy to make sure the car lasts another 50 or more years.
This is where my preference for fuseable links spur from, they can be made very inconspicuous so that only the absolute keenest of eye would notice it, and even if noticed, I beleive it would be a plus rather than a chritisism if it even rated a mention.
As I have said before, I have had to repair a lot of cars (and small trucks/pickups) with burnt out main harnesses and 99% of them were mopars.
I cant stress this highly enough especially those with ammeters fitted to their cars as these were the main causes of these meltdowns.
As for relay fitment, brilliant idea in most cases, but here I do have sympathy for the purists in that a properly fitted relay should be mounted as close to the load (lights, horn ect) as possible with the heaviest (within reason) wire supplying the relay and its ouput as short as possible
This makes for a very un attractive engine bay with little boxes and wires all over the place
The relays and extra circuit protection can be built under the dash or into an engine bay mounted juntion box to neaten things up (which is what you find in todays cars), but that neatness does come with comprimises
My own car is being built to drive whenever I feel like it (basically my daily driver) and as such, I really should put a few relays ect into it, and might end up having to do so, but not yet, but those cars that are being used as sunday cars can get away with not doing it, but be prepared for the ocasional switch failure as a rebuilt switch is still a 50y/o rebuilt switch and will eventually fail (as do relays ect)
What Darren is talking about is 100% electrically correct (I dis agree with aspects or fine points, but thats the difference between points of view), but its not sensative to the purist way of thinking
I can appreciate both ends of the scale as in, I can look at a model T with wooden wheels chugging along the road and love it as much as a T bucket with a blower that flies past him at 100mph, both have a car lovers skill and passion somehow invested in these cars (wether they built it with there own hands or worked at whatever they do to afford to pay for someone to build it)
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Extreme Veteran
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Location: Invermere B.C. Canada - Rocky Mountains | plymouth - 2014-11-30 1:37 PM I am looking to relieve some of the current draw through the headlight switch by adding a relay. I cannot find the thread that covers this , so I'm asking for some help on this. How would the relay be wired ? Also, any other improvement that can be made to the original harness?
………..seemed like a pretty unobtrusive question didn’t?  |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 524
Location: West Jordan | ttotired - 2014-12-11 5:14 AM I have to pull you up on the relays Darren, they were and had been available long before our cars were made and mine (and I think the rest of them as well) had a horn relay , First up, thanks for actually reading my post rather than deciding I was saying something that I was not, I think there are some mental challenges going on there so I will not go further on that. Yes there were relays but back then, but the thought was that they could make a larger headlight switch, with larger contacts, and would not need a relay. As it turns out there have been many fires as a result of overheated headlight switches, not as many as due to the amp meter but quite a few. When I speak of relays I am referring to modern 5 pin 30/40 relays. I own and have build just as many bone stock vehicles and modified. I have build concourse harness for vehicles costing well over $100K, and we are talking class winners. So to clarify this, for the ones who can read or understand posts, I will say it slow, If you are going to modify your electrical do it the smart and safest way. Is that easy enough to understand? Oh and BTW, I have had pimples on my azz that have given me more sleepless nights than anything you do or say, eh. As far as the amp meter fires goes, we usually see it after the owner has installed an alternator or gong to a higher amp alternator. I thing the original design was well thought out, although they should have switched to volt much meters sooner than they did. Again it comes down to improper mods, but that is not to say amp meters don’t fail and that will smoke the wire. |
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Location: Parts Unknown | rushpowersystems - 2014-12-12 9:17 AM
I have had pimples on my azz that have given me more sleepless nights than anything you do or say, eh.
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Thanks for bringing that up.
I have been meaning to thank you for sending the photo. BTW - nice socks ! 
 (Hey, Big Fella!.jpg)
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Hey, Big Fella!.jpg (98KB - 151 downloads)
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Expert
Posts: 1906
Location: Ontario, Canada | plymouth - 2014-11-30 3:37 PM
I am looking to relieve some of the current draw through the headlight switch by adding a relay
If you add a relay you will bypass the CB protection already built into the H/L switch. It is already set to trip and reset to the normal current draw plus some safety factor.
Mick has already pointed out that both H/L switches and wiper switches had to LEGALLY be protected by auto-reset CBs. In case of any overload, the auto-reset CBs will allow intermittent operation to pilot the car safely off the roadway.
Re: Improvements:
I gave details for fusible links. At NO TIME did I ever suggest that fusible links should take the place of fuses. What I did say is that fusible links COULD be added as an "IMPROVEMENT" for FL cars. I thought that I had clearly stated that these links were specifically designed for protection from CATASTROPHIC situations only. They were NOT designed to protect against casual overload situations.
If, at the side of the road, a properly designed and spec'd fusible link burns and melts, you have just DODGED A BULLET. You would be well advised to have the car towed for diagnosis because there is probably a VERY serious problem which can't be solved by simply replacing a link or fuse!!
Greg |
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Location: Parts Unknown | If a person were forced off to the side of the road by pimples on their axx, what then ?
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Expert
Posts: 1906
Location: Ontario, Canada | Doctor DeSoto - 2014-12-13 3:42 PM
If a person were forced off to the side of the road by pimples on their axx, what then ?
Sounds medical to me. You are the "doctor", you tell us! |
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Wiring improvements
