replacement fuse block

[rmchrgr]

OK, pulling my hair out trying to clean up my wiring behind my dash. I have aftermarket gauges etc. etc. I need to find somewhere to power these things but there are few empty spade terminals to tap into and I don't like piggy backing on to existing circuits.

Anybody either add an auxiliary fuse block to your existing one or replace the thing outright with a 'modern' one? I would think adding an auxiliary one would be easiest but I'm not sure how to do it.

Not looking to re do all the wiring but I'm at the point where the OE system is not sufficient. Most everything was working but some things were not (tach, shift light). The more I dug into it, the more I thought it should be done 'right".

Thanks for any input. Pics and descriptions are most helpful.

 

[Bad Sport]

I ran a heavy wire direct from my battery through the firewall and mounted a 5 fuse block up above my gas pedal for such extras.

 

[RedFish]

I would just go to a parts yard a pick one. Early 80s GM products had a decent inside fuse bank with labels and cover, flashers, etc..
I liked those that would swing down 90 degrees to view also.

 

[rmchrgr]

What about something like this? Seems simple enough.

 

[67Dart273]

Be careful with some of that aftermarket stuff.

Firstly, and it took me a LONG time to come around to this, the new type fuses are VASTLY superior to the old cartridge fuses. And I do mean vastly. The old clips and fuses suffered from corrosion problems at the clips, poor contact there, and could blow a fuse right there because of heat

Second, and I realize the photo in the post above is just an example, the old girls were horridly under fused

Last, when buying something aftermarket, and there were some pretty poor stuff out there, look carefully at "how it's built."

If the thing is riveted together through the plastic, and the plastic is "thermal" then a small amount of heat can cause electrical failure. If you examine the original Mopar fuse clips, they were all one piece. That is, you could cut the plastic away and dangle the thing in mid-air and it would still function electrically.

 

[rmchrgr]

Bussmann seems like a quality product. Gonna look around tomorrow to see if I can find a 6 circuit block.

I also need to figure out how to get reliable power to the aux. fuse block. My battery is in the trunk so I use a terminal block up front that gets power from the alternator. It's starting to get crowded on there though, may have to figure something else out.

 

[player1up]

Have a look at motorcycle fuse blocks. They have around 5-6 circuits, use blade type fuses, have a plug that can be reused or re-purposed and usually have a cover.
When I swapped in the magnum motor, I incorporated the under hood power distribution block from the Dakota because I needed the power for the stock efi. It has plenty of fuse slots, has a huge power lug, and looks pretty stock ( for a newer car at least )

 

[Darter6]

If I may add some to this, Where is the best place to pick up "Keyed" power source to add the extra block of (6) fuses ? Should it be run thru a relay first ?

 

[BillGrissom]

After-market gages draw minimal current. Unless you have real loads, I would just use existing circuits. Many of the fuse outputs on your existing box have spade terminals. You can get "piggy-back" spades to add-on. Indeed, the factory did that (should have some). You can also get at constant 12 V from the cigarette lighter and glove-box. Some cars had mini-bullet splitters for that.

One thing to consider is to power the ACC circuit via a relay, actuated off the key switch output. I did that in my cars. May not be necessary but seemed prudent since I was bench fixing the whole dash harness anyway.

 

[rmchrgr]

So just to follow up here - went to the parts store and picked up a Bussmann 6 slot ATC fuse block. Seems to work OK, no problems so far.

My battery is in the trunk so I tied it to my bus terminal on the firewall which is fed by alternator charging voltage. I ran it through a 30 amp circuit breaker right off the terminal block so in case there's a problem I don't have any real length of potentially melting wire passing through the firewall. Most of the stuff that runs through the fuse block is fairly low voltage so I'm not real concerned but it's there if anything should arise.

I mounted the block to some really thin aluminum I had laying around. I used snips to cut that to size and kind of smoothed it out a little but it ain't perfect by any stretch. I used the existing fastener holes for the firewall insulation and ran some some long screws from the outside through it to fasten it rigidly.

So most of my aftermarket gauges were run here as well as the roll control, MSD tach adapter and RPM activated switch. I didn't really want to go through this extra wiring jive but there weren't enough empty slots on the OE fuse box. In addition, I was a little leery of piggybacking all this stuff onto existing (old) circuits as well since it needs to be fused properly with the added loads. Too much to think about so this is what I ended up with.

Pics below of the mounted/wired fuse block and circuit breaker.