Jay, and Listers,
For an online copy of the Tiger wiring (done by Bill Gegg) see
http://members.home.net/tsmit/mk1wire.html.
You can draw your own conclusions from what's wired to the left fuse.
Offhand I don't see why the horn and a couple of courtesy lights should be
fused at 35 amps, but a cigarette lighter is typically fused at 20 amps. If
you're going to fuse 130 watts (nominal) of lighting, normally you'd want a
20 to 25 amp fuse for that alone.
The problem comes in when you add all that up. If you put a 50 amp fuse in
to handle the total load, the reality of the situation is that none of the
16 to 18 gauge wires that make up the standard wiring harness can stand that
kind of current for very long.
My recommendation? If you have a cigarette lighter, fuse the lights
separately on a 25 amp circuit, and use 14 or 16 gauge wire to do it. If you
don't, you could fuse the headlights where the left fuse is, as Jay
suggests, and use a 30 amp fuse. Don't turn on the headlights while honking
the horn. ;)
My $.02,
Theo
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jay Laifman [SMTP:Jay_Laifman@countrywide.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2000 9:12 AM
> To: alpines@autox.team.net; tigers@autox.team.net
> Subject: Easy Fuse Trick?
>
> There have always been comments about how poorly fused our cars are. This
> weekend I was studying the wiring diagram to double check that I hooked
> everything back up right. I noticed that the following systems are not
> fused at all: headlights, headlight switch, turnsignal switch and
> turnsignals, ignition switch, and much of the stuff off of the ignition
> switch. But, at the same time, I saw that by switching ONE wire, all of
> that goes through a fuse.
>
> If you look at the fuse box, one of the fuses has three brown wires on it.
> The other end has nothing in most cars, and on the GTs, it has one wire
> for
> the door lights. Those three brown wires are (1) power from the battery
> (after linking on the starter solenoid), (2) power to the ignition switch,
> and (3) power to the light switch.
>
> I figured if you took off the power from the battery wire and flipped it
> over to the OTHER SIDE of the fuse, BINGO, you've just fused all those
> other systems! Of course, on the GT's, you'd probably want to flip the
> door switch wire back over to the other side to keep it fused.
>
> Anyone have any ideas why this is not good? Or why the factory would not
> have done it that way in the first place? Lastly, the factory called for
> 35A fuses. Is there any reason that should be any different for these
> lighting systems?
>
> P.S. This is based upon the wiring diagram and actual wiring of a SV. I
> did not look at my Tiger wiring diagram or my other Alpine diagrams, but
> can if someone wants.
>
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