Re: 164 Running Again and Dodgy Fuses

[<johnandcathie@domain.elided>]

Karl,

Glad to hear that your 164 is back on the road!

Don't feel bad about the fuse story - here is mine, and it only happened
yesterday.

I have just changed my insurance to get a better deal, and part of the
requirement was to fit an immobiliser.  The installer (not me) was going
well until he tried to connect the remote control to the electric boot
release, then everything went horribly wrong while installing an additional
relay. 

A check of the system (fuse first) revealed that everything looked OK.  We
re-checked the fuse - the continuity checker on the multimeter beeped
healthily.  In desperation, Mr Installer swapped the fuse with another out
of the fuse box - lo! everything was back to normal.

The fuse looked OK.  It checked out with a multimeter OK.  We prised it
apart.  Unlike a lot of blade fuses where the blade and the fusible part are
stamped out of a single piece of metal, and then encased in clear plastic,
this one consisted of two blades that were spot-welded to the fusible bit,
encased in a two-piece snap-together opaque plastic thingy.  I think that
these are the original Alfa fuses.  Some electrical misadventure during the
installation seemed to have slightly cooked one of the spot welds without
blowing the fuse.  The pressure of the multimeter probes seemed to hold it
together to give a good reading.  Installing it obviously opened up the
crack, and hey presto - open circuit!

If these were the original Alfa fuses, it makes me wonder how many Alfa
hours have been spent tracing electrical problems after we have all checked
our fuses and they looked OK???  It might explain why half of my circuits
dropped out completely one night some months ago with no traceable cause.

For the few dollars that it would cost, I'm really tempted to replace ALL
the fuses with new ones.  I certainly know the first thing that I will now
do when looking for an electrical fault!

Regards,
John Wiltshire
Sydney Australia

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