I’d like to know why my fusible link didn’t protect that circuit.
Fuse links are very very undependable, a true story:
When I had my old 70 440-6 car, about 72, a couple girls whalloped into the rear of it in San Diego. While it was at the body shop, the dealer gave me a junk loaner Valiant. Slant six, bald tires, one of them (there were two!!) broke a heater hose which had been cooked to "brittle."
ANY way this was a "cold winter" in San Diego and one morning I had started it up at the RADAR shop at Miramar as I was getting off "duty." The Chief, who could EXACTLY resemble TV detective "Columbo," came in and said, "I just have one question.....is it supposed to be squealing and smoking?"
So I go out and the alternator is STOPPED but the belt is slipping around it--oily--loose--smoking-squealing.
For reasons that escape me, I loosened the adjustment, took a rag and tried to wiggle the pulley. Turns out the reason it was stopped--IS THAT A DIODE HAD FALLEN OUT OF THE CASE AND WAS STOPPED BY THE ROTOR. When I wiggled the pulley, it moved the diode,which then caused a short to the case. ---and I sat there and watched the underhood harness smoke, fizzle, melt, and when it got all done cooking into a smelly, smokey mess--THAT is when the link blew.
I called the dealer, and told them "to send another loaner and a wrecker." Instead, 2 hours later, a Mexican in a junk pickup full of junk batteries and ragged jumper cables showed up. I went out and he looked at me from under the hood and said, "hey this is all burned up." !!DUH!!
This was McCune Chyrsler Plymouth in National City, by the way, and even though they are now a huge place, I would NEVER do business with them ever again.
