Burned fuse

I lost my lights last night and this fuse was the culprit. I have never seen one burn up like this. Does this mean I have a larger problem somewhere in the wiring or could I have had a bad fuse that didn't want to die?

 

that can't be good

 

It was a 20amp that blew and after seeing it burned up like that I didn't dare stick in another one. I drove it a couple of miles home in the dark with the hazzard lights on and my 6-cell mag light out the door. Parked it when I got home and disconnected the battery. I am wondering if I have bad switch somewhere?

I don't think I have any water leak issues...especially because I try not to drive it in the rain.

 

I've seen 'em melt before, but never quite that bad. I am guessing it just refused to die. I agree with Lynn that a bigger fuse might fix the problem.

 

Seeing how it's only melted on one side tells me that you had a loose connection to the terminal on that side. It was arcing between the female receptacle in the fuse block and the male spade on the fuse by the looks of it. Hopefully the female terminal in the block isn't trashed. Get everything cleaned up really well and maybe put some dielectric grease on it and put a new fuse in it.

 

I had one do that one time in a later model vehicle on a circuit that (probalby due to my own stupidity) was way overloaded. What all do you have running off that fuse?

As far as cleaning out the charred remains, I disconnected the batt, then dipped Q-tips in denatured alcohol (available at your local pharmacy) and twisted it around in contacts until they were good and clean. You may need to use a small screwdriver or something to carefully scrape away the big chunks first.

 

yup, i would say you had an arcing problem. seen it before when the fuse wasnt in rihgt, or it got way overloaded in a hurry. i agree with everyone else, clean it out real quick and if you have a fluke handy(multimeter) measure that ckt that the fuse came out on...make sure you are not making more amps than you should be

 

If that fuse is in the headlight circuit, perhaps you should remove the fuse entirely.

Usually the headlights are wired through a circuit breaker on the rear of the headlight switch. Actually it is some sort of thermal interrupt rather than a breaker, because it'll reset itself when it cools down.

I'm not sure that popping a fuse in the headlight circuit necessarily indicates any problem at all other than the fuse rating.

While you are at it you might check the gauge of the headlight system wiring. It sounds as if someone has gotten in there, and hopefully no one has inadvertently swapped the wiring for a higher (smaller wire) gauge.

good luck