QuestionHow to repair burnt fusable link?
My 93 Grand Voyager suddenly stopped in the middle of an intersection and I was able to coast to the side of corner on the opposite side.
The instrument panel lights went out. The radio which was on went dead. I called the AAA and while waiting for them,I inspected all the fuses and they seemed to be okay. My daughter said she smelled a burnt smell. I opened the hood and checked and didn't find anything obvious that could cause that smell. The tow truck driver checked the problem and felt that the battery was good at 13.3 volts. He had me do the ignition thing and before checking the battery had tried to jump cable the engine. The interior lights could be turned on by using the dimmer switch.
I later checked out the situation at home where the minivan was towed to and found a wire that had a couple of tiny holes that were black on the red insulated wire located on the top portion of a thick bundle of insulated wires leading from the engine compartment to the driver's side. There was a nearby plastic item that had some black carbon deposits. I felt the wire and there was a gap of about an inch of missing wire between the two pieces of wire that still remained insulated. I read Hayes and Chilton manual for the Grand Voyager and felt that the electrical diagrams needed more information for the 1993 model. I read elsewhere on the web that I could check Mitchell manual at the library for more detailed electrical diagram. I just needed some advice on how to go about solving this situation. I already went to NAPA to get the part of the same wire gauge fusable link and the connectors as well. Would appreciate some advice.
ernestt
AnswerHi Ernest,
I checked the wiring diagrams and there are 2 red fusible links, one that runs alot of the lighting, power door locks, etc. and one that feeds a couple of key circuits to the igntion switch. That latter one is probably what is blown, and it is 10 gauge wire, correct?
It in turn powers three fusible links in parallel to one another (2 oranges and a white). The sum of the currents thru those 3 evidentally blew the red, although you may find that one of those 3 is also blown. If you have an ohmmeter I would begin by checking the resistance from the downstream end of the burnt link to see if it reads more than 1 ohm, i.e is not a dead short to ground which would be 0 ohms when putting the other end of the meter at the - post of the battery. If that test passes, then it would be safe to put the fusible link replacement in. If not and it reads nearly 0 ohms, then further tests need to be done to see which of the 3 fed circuits is shorting out. You may notetheless find that it will blow again in which case further analysis will be necessary to determine which of more than a dozen components on those circuits has gone bad.
To replace the link, either use the connectors that you bought or do the following:
cut out the burned section and strip back the insulation on the two ends that are usable by about 1". Then take a length of the new link that is 2" longer than the piece that you cut out and strip its insulation about 1" at either end. Then get some heat shrink insulation tubing and slip about 2" of that over the ends of the replacement link piece and back far enough to re-expose the exposed wire strands. Then spread the wire strands of all 4 ends slightly and insert the original and new link ends together so that you end up with a 1" connection and twist all the wires to get good interconnection. Then solder those connections with electrical solder and a soldering gun. Then push the heat shrink tubing over each joint and use a heat gun/hair drier to shrink the tubing around the joints. Then secure the link to the other links for mechanical strength.
Then start it up and see what happens.
Let me know what your ohmmeter reading is before doing the replacement. And only replace as much link as you cut out.
Roland
