Troubleshooting Electrics Without Blowing Fuses

from the list

I was having electrical problems with my car. A dead short kept blowing the fuse for the running lamps. I had gone through about 12 fuses trying to find the unlikely source of the problem.

Well, as you probably know, fuses aren't cheap. So a guy at the office saw me working on my car and brought me a car restoration magazine that had a tips section. One of the tips was, to keep from continually having to replace those $.60-$1.00 fuses, do the following:

Using a blown glass fuse, a circuit breaker of the proper amperage rating and short length of insulated wire, solder wires to the contacts of the circuit breaker and then solder the loose ends of the wires to the metal ends of the blown fuse. Plug the fuse into the fuse box and proceed to troubleshoot the electrical problem.

You hit the button on the breaker to reset it, and if you haven't fixed the fuse problem, the breaker will pop-off. Reset the breaker as often as you like (but don't hold the button down! You might blow whatever the fuse was protecting.)

I would suggest making the two wires just long enough to set the breaker on your car's shelf and reach to the highest fuse panel slot.