unpleasant surprise, new fuse panel install Options

[r3dplanet]

Quite a while back I bought an Engman fuse panel. It's lovely and I'm happy that I bought it. I finally installed it today and, after a little smoke, made an unpleasant discovery.

It turns out that the metal bracket on the back of the fuse panel touches right up to a positive wire connector that has live voltage.

Hence the smoke.

My question is why is this battery connector sitting right here so close to the panel? With the new fuse panel bolted up it makes direct contact between the rear metal bracket and the live connector making a really solid short circuit. Has anyone else noticed this? I have no idea if my connector is even in the stock location. There doesn't seem to be another convenient spot to relocate it to.

Thanks,
Marcus

[JeffBowlsby]

With due respect to the 'inventors' of these aftermarket fusepanels, I am not convinced these are worth the trouble over the factory stock fusepanel. I think they are solutions to a non-problem and in fact create other problems just to make them work, and the experiences in this thread prove that. They are just adaptations of inexpensive generic fuse boxes interposed into the factory wiring for minimal if any benefit. Why anyone would give up the quality built factory fusepanel is a mystery to me. Just because these are new, does not mean they are better. Some seem to be better than others, in fairness. I would really like to see a 'shoot-out' comparison to better understand their characteristics compared to each other and with the stock fusepanel by a neutral person that can give us the facts.

My concerns are:

1. Sure they use new improved fuses - so what, the original bullet fuses work fine.

2. Some complain that they knock the fuse cover and fuses off getting in/out of the car. That has never happened to me in 35 years of driving these cars. Just be cautious or zip tie the cover on if this is problem for you.

3. The shorts to ground and melted wires for the early cars described above are serious hazards - why should the factory terminal block need to be relocated, wrapped, taped to the harness or left to hang free just to accommodate the new fusepanel? Its stupid to have to do this and should not need to be done - it screams to me that these fusepanels create more problems than they solve.

4. The wires from the harness do not connect onto the fusepanel well because they attach through the sides of the fusepanels, putting strain at the wire-to-wire terminal junction. So as a result, the harness wrapping needs to be cut and loosened up to minimize this strain. Another thing that is contrived.

5. The factory fusepanel has busses for some of the circuits that the aftermarket fusepanels do not have becasue they are generic adaptions. How are these circuits handled with the aftermarket fusepanels and has the engineering been done to assure that these affected circuits are not under/overloaded? Are adapter tabs used? If so..another contrivance.

There may be more, but thats it for now.

[Bartlett 914]

With due respect to the 'inventors' of these aftermarket fusepanels, I am not convinced these are worth the trouble over the factory stock fusepanel. I think they are solutions to a non-problem and in fact create other problems just to make them work, and the experiences in this thread prove that. They are just adaptations of inexpensive generic fuse boxes interposed into the factory wiring for minimal if any benefit. Why anyone would give up the quality built factory fusepanel is a mystery to me. Just because these are new, does not mean they are better. Some seem to be better than others, in fairness. I would really like to see a 'shoot-out' comparison to better understand their characteristics compared to each other and with the stock fusepanel by a neutral person that can give us the facts.

My concerns are:

1. Sure they use new improved fuses - so what, the original bullet fuses work fine.

2. Some complain that they knock the fuse cover and fuses off getting in/out of the car. That has never happened to me in 35 years of driving these cars. Just be cautious or zip tie the cover on if this is problem for you.

3. The shorts to ground and melted wires for the early cars described above are serious hazards - why should the factory terminal block need to be relocated, wrapped, taped to the harness or left to hang free just to accommodate the new fusepanel? Its stupid to have to do this and should not need to be done - it screams to me that these fusepanels create more problems than they solve.

4. The wires from the harness do not connect onto the fusepanel well because they attach through the sides of the fusepanels, putting strain at the wire-to-wire terminal junction. So as a result, the harness wrapping needs to be cut and loosened up to minimize this strain. Another thing that is contrived.

5. The factory fusepanel has busses for some of the circuits that the aftermarket fusepanels do not have becasue they are generic adaptions. How are these circuits handled with the aftermarket fusepanels and has the engineering been done to assure that these affected circuits are not under/overloaded? Are adapter tabs used? If so..another contrivance.

There may be more, but thats it for now.

You do make some good points. I still believe the new panels are a good improvement. The connections on the fuses are stronger. Loose fuse connections corrode and can get hot. I really like the new fuses especially the illuminated ones that indicate a blown fuse.

The buss bar connections you referred to could be a concern. My panel was from Engman. He used "Solder Wick" to connect the hot sides of some circuits as is needed. He simply had this pressed into position. It was held in place by a plastic part in the back of the panel. This was not good so I soldered mine in place.

In defense of your position, I would add that disturbing the wires and connections can cause problems. Wires get old and brittle. Connectors get corroded and loose their gripping tension. When changing the panel, you risk causing problems because of this. In my view, that's life. If the wires look too corroded and brittle, replace or repair them. They are trouble looking to happen anyway.

[JWest]

The buss bar connections you referred to could be a concern. My panel was from Engman. He used "Solder Wick" to connect the hot sides of some circuits as is needed. He simply had this pressed into position. It was held in place by a plastic part in the back of the panel. This was not good so I soldered mine in place.

The JWest panel has internal soldered connections for the buss bars.

I was not aware of how the Engman panel was assembled. Since there is no longer support for Engman products, I will make a couple suggestions. I would recommend anyone with an Engman panel to remove the back covers and the buss wires soldered if the above is the case for all he produced. I would also recommend changing the metal strip mounting to a different configuration or maybe coating it with plasti-dip. That strap always looked to me like a place for a wire to rub and short.