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.

[JWest]

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.

People have different experiences and trouble areas, no need to upgrade if you have never had issues due to your use and environment. The experience in the thread showed a different design than mine had a big design flaw when fitted to early cars.


1. In a variable weather environment such as the east coast where I grew up, the bullet fuses would corrode at the ends and have to be spun to establish a good connection every once in a while. Had the issue with VWs and Porsches when the cars were only a few years old and even still had factory installed (quality) fuses. In the desert it will probably never be an issue.

2. I used to have it happen when I was a lanky flexible 17 year old, getting older and stiffer has not helped. Probably very dependant on your height, leg length, seat position, shoe size, etc. "Just be cautious" kinda goes out the window when you are trying to keep pouring rain out of your car on a dark night in a hotel parking lot of a car event you are attending.

3. That has never been an issue with my properly engineered mounting.

4. There is plenty of room to do this right, just takes a little care. I argue that in the factory design the wire tension works to pull open the terminals and make them loose (which I have seen many times), while the side orientation does not do this.

5. Ganged fuses are internally bussed on my panel to dupicate the factory scheme. I created test setups to stress the units well beyond the design load for extended periods under non-ideal conditions to prove the design before it was used.

[DBCooper]

Couldn't agree more.

1. In a variable weather environment such as the east coast where I grew up, the bullet fuses would corrode at the ends and have to be spun to establish a good connection every once in a while. Had the issue with VWs and Porsches when the cars were only a few years old and even still had factory installed (quality) fuses. In the desert it will probably never be an issue.

Actually that's true here too, and always has been. My first VW was a 1960 with those same bullet fuses, same problem. Not just my car either, I was a VW mechanic in dry central California where it's always been an issue. When there are electrical issues the first thing any mechanic will do will be spin the fuses. They get worse over time. I suspect there's some heat that develops in the connection that over the years eventually lessens the temper of the metal so it loses tensile and the fight against simple gravity pulling those fuses out. Who hasn't bent the copper in to give them back some tension? You shouldn't need to do that to keep something working.

2. I used to have it happen when I was a lanky flexible 17 year old, getting older and stiffer has not helped. Probably very dependent on your height, leg length, seat position, shoe size, etc. "Just be cautious" kinda goes out the window when you are trying to keep pouring rain out of your car on a dark night in a hotel parking lot of a car event you are attending.

It definitely isn't age, I knocked them loose then and still knock the damned things loose today. And for some reason always in the dark. It's gone on long enough now that I recognize that as the pattern.

There's also the advantage of the new fuses with the LED's that let you know they're blown. I'm older now and HATE doing anything under the dash, so appreciate the at-a-glance indication those fuses give.

For perspective I've never gone and will never go to a concours show so originality has no particular value to me. I want things that work. Those original fuses are a REALLY old design, and electronics has progressed a lot since then.