Gil,
I am working as an electronic engineer in the automove industry. The company I
am working for parttime is one of the big parts sellers for classic British
cars here in Europe. In my spare time I work on my classic cars and help
friends with their car electrics. Often I get additional grey hairs when I want
to fix something on a friends car and see a wiring harness nobody is anymore
able to find the routes of the cables and circuits. A network of additional
cables, additional fuses and relais added without any documentation, cable
colours not as they should be and all mixed together or all in one colour!!. A
network of cables under the dashboard which reminds me to a telecom switching
centre - nightmare.
I see your point and you and many others feel saver the more fuses and relais
are installed in the car. Don´t forget they can also fail, and the more you
add the more can fail. Its usually the connectors and connections which fail.
When you double the fuses and relais you eightfold the connections in the
wiring system. So 10times more causes for trouble.
When an electric device fails, it usually causes a short circuit or an open
cirquit. Open cirquit means no harm to the system. Short cirquit means any
fuse, 5 Amps or 50 Amps blow off before the wiring melts. There are only very
isolated failures which can cause real trouble like the overdrive solenoid,
when its internal contacts do not open when engaged. This is a point to fit an
additional fuse. Another one is the not originally fused back light cirquit.
Your point "Losing just one smaller circuit rather than disabling a major
portion of the car can make the difference between getting back home or being
completely disabled alongside the road."
This I see as a valid point for those drivers who have only marginal skils with
electrical systems and are not able to find the issue by their own. But when
you can read a wiring diagram and know how to use a volt meter, it shouldn´t
be a problem to find the source of the problem and isolate it. I think there
are much more who get stranded with generator failure (No, I have to say
alternator failure, as these are morre prone to fail than the old LUCAS
generator) or electronic ignition failure.
You see my experiance is more from the other side and I am really happy when I
have an original wired car with an electrical problem, than one of these with
modified electrical systems which usually cause havoc.
Don´t forget, British classic cars were simple cars and the engineers were
clever enough to keep them simple. If you want a complex classic car there are
so many mainly Italian, French, classics where you can find these gimmicks and
they always cause troubles. That´s why they very hardly won an indurance
rally. Austin-Healeys came through and one reason for that was their
elementary but very reliable electrical system with the LUCAS name on it.
Josef Eckert
Germany
-----Original-Nachricht-----
Betreff: RE: [Healeys] New Classic Technologies Fuse Box
Datum: 2015-12-17T14:14:57+0100
Von: "Gil Rockwell" <gilrockwell@gmail.com>
An: "josef-eckert@t-online.de" <josef-eckert@t-online.de>, "'Oudesluys'"
<coudesluijs@chello.nl>, "'Healeys, Forum'" <healeys@autox.team.net>
Josef,
I think the point is when you have more than one fuse, a problem is isolated to
the smaller circuit with its own fuse rather than taking out a large portion of
the electrical system in the car. Losing just one smaller circuit rather than
disabling a major portion of the car can make the difference between getting
back home or being completely disabled alongside the road. I always vote for
having more fuse circuits when I am re-wiring any car. I've done many over the
years and have never regretted doing so. Keeping a few extra fuses in the
storage area is not a big deal. Also, having a fuse sized to the smaller
circuit's task means that a fault of a part will be detected by a more
appropriately sized fuse rather than a large fuse that might not blow when a
smaller part fails internally and causes it to smoke or catch fire before the
large fuse finally fails. This is when the wring begins to take the abuse and
overheat due to the large fuse not failing in time. My 61 BT7 has the original
fuse setup and a new wiring harness installed by the previous owner, but if it
ever fails, I will certainly take advantage of a new fuse distribution box like
the one being discussed and I will have the peace of mind knowing that a single
failure will not take out the entire car. I believe any automotive engineer
will agree with me, but you are entitled to your opinion based on keeping a
Healey original.
Gil
61 BT7
-----Original Message-----
From: Healeys [mailto:healeys-bounces@autox.team.net] On Behalf Of
josef-eckert@t-online.de
Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2015 1:32 AM
To: Oudesluys; Healeys, Forum
Subject: [Healeys] New Classic Technologies Fuse Box
Kees,
Sorry, but you wrote switches are old and have worn a fair bit.
That may be right, but when you have a look to the internals of an original
Austin-Healey ignition switch or light switch, the contact design and switching
abilities are far superior to anycar box relay you get in today´s market. So
they are more than capable to cope with the high currents. Its different with
i.e. MG B switches used in the 70s.
You also wrote:
Also having only two large fuses causes a lot of damage when something goes
wrong and there is a short.
I see you are not much in electrics. It doesn´t matter if you have 2 or 30
fuses in your car. When there is a short and the line is fused, via one of the
2 or 30 fuses, the fuse blows and no damage is caused. So when you fuse each
line seperately there is no improvement. Critical are those connections which
are not fused at all. There I see an improvement with additional fuses. But
there are only two or three additional fuses needed, when you want to savegard
this.
The original electrical system of my original Healeys are more reliable as any
of my modern cars. To my opinion many fuses do not help, the cause even more
trouble.
Josef Eckert
Germany
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