Fuses & Fusing

[PEU186F]

Many thanks for your inputs on this, which have helped clarify things for me.

It appears that we need to be very sure that we are indeed buying glass fuses to the original spec, if originality is the thing. I seem to vaguely recall that fuses were once marked eg 17/35, but I haven't seen that recently.

For myself I think I'm going to follow David Olivants lead in fitting multiple modern blade type fuses (or circuit breakers?) and a high current relay to take the load of the circuits that are switched off the ignition switch. I have three things in my mind

1) I have had quite a lot of trouble with glass fuses failing, without apparently blowing, in that one of the end caps fall off, but the fuse link is not "blown". Very odd and it has usually happened at the most inconvenient moment, bringing eg indicators, cooling fan, wipers and fuel gauge to a simultaneous halt. Tedious, especially as it's not immediately obvious that the fuse has blown.

2) On my 410 the handbook specifies a 60 Amp fuse to "protect", amongst other things, the feed to the interior light. Really.......?. I don't fit anything over 35 Amps, reckoning that it's unlikely that I will light a cigar while flashing the headlights, but even so......

3) I know, from bitter experience, that the ignition switch really isn't up to the total load that it's being asked to switch. It would seem sensible to let a contactor take the load.

David, if you have any further record of what you did I'd be very glad to have a copy as there's little point in reinventing the whole thing.

My regards and thanks again