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Fuse 10 - fizz pop SCREAM! Help please!

Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 10:45 pm
by Spirantho
Hi again. Two posts in two days - a new record. :)

I just came back from an evening drive in the country. Which was lovely except when fuse 10 blew up with a plume of smoke and a nice little flame.

The scream was from my girlfriend, by the way, not me. :) (OK, she didn't actually scream - just got out very quickly)

Now, I know what causes the fire - the plastic in the fuse. I know what causes the fuse to go pop - a current greater than the 10A the fuse is rated to.

What I don't know is what to do about it.
Now I know the garage has before had a bit of "fun" trying to get my lights to behave properly - apparently he had to put grounding points in various places. Maybe there's something else squiffy going on.

Can anyone give me guidelines as to how to work out what's wrong? I'm guessing it's corrosion somewhere that's stopping a good contact being made, thereby increasing the resistance and therefore the load on the wiring. I'll probably get the garage to look at it again but I've got no money at all at the moment so if I can do anything myself.

I have the usual Halfords spanner kit thingy and a digital multimeter, if that helps. :)

Please, any assistance would be great as at the moment I have no left beam and I'm a bit afraid to put any lights on at the moment!

(Incidentally, I was lucky - I had the lights on just as it was starting to get dark, and I was only 15 minutes away from home, so I got home safe and sound.)

Re: Fuse 10 - fizz pop SCREAM! Help please!

Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 8:29 am
by Nate
is there any sign of water leaking down onto the fusebox?

Re: Fuse 10 - fizz pop SCREAM! Help please!

Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 8:42 am
by Spirantho
Nope, I don't think so. And given the garage has mentioned having to do things to make the lights work I'm pretty sure it's a wiring problem.
We did wash her yesterday, but I think that's co-incidence.

I actually had smoke coming out the dashboard lights switch about a year ago (probably the last time I used the lights properly!), so I changed the switch (got a new one on eBay which seems ok), don't know if that has anything to do with it. Maybe I should check that again, but I suspect the dodgy switch before was also a symptom, not a cause...