DuttonOwners

Dutton Kit Cars and their owners

Hi Guys

I possibly have the beginings of an electrical gremlin starting,

My fusebox is of the escort 7 fuse type and I keep blowing the number seven fuse which is wipers/washer. I was out in the car the other evening and just switched the lights on and I lost some instruments and the ignition light came on and then trying it tonight the fuse blew with just the ignition turned on and then turning the lights on, with ignition off and then tunring the lights on its fine.

I remember at my MOT this year with everything on this fuse blew.

I didn't want to rewire the car just yet as I wanted to wait whilst I rebuilt an engine to transplant later along with Chassis mods to strenghthen and a 5 link set-up

I am no auto electrician so any possible pointers will help, if all else fails its a rewire over winter for me :-(

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If you are using the escort fuse box then I'd guess at the loom being predominantly escort too. There is no quick fix for intermittent loom faults. It maybe worth taking the battery off and testing the fused circuits for shorts. You can do this with any cheap multimeter that has an audible continuity beeper. Most of the circuits will of course earth through whatever 'load' they normally power. Pay attention to connectors, especially if you have scotchloks in the loom. If this doesn't turn up any obvious faults I'd seriously think about that rewire as a matter of urgency. 

My Sierra developed a fault which caused the loom under the dash to short out somehow, this in turn caused the car to try and start itself while sitting in the driveway where it had been for quite a few hours. The damage to the loom cost me two days off work but more important, if I hadn't caught it when I did it could have cost me the whole car. Only the fact I had new wiring with hardwall insulation stopped it catching fire. Old escort looms are made out of older and more combustible materials. The wiring under the dash had to be replaced and the car stunk of burnt plastic for ages... could have been worse. Battery cutoff switch to isolate the energy source (battery) is a must fit item if you don't already have one. Don't rely on fuses alone.

Thanks for the tips there Adrian.

Before ripping everything out I backtracked over all I had done since buying the car two years ago, after a lot of headscratching I finally worked out a possible cause and sure enough fitting a new light/wiper stalk = problem solved, there was a short in the stalk somewhere.

The rewire can now wait a little bit

Good result. I hate wiring until I get started on it, then you have problems dragging me away from it.

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