It IS MADE BY FORD!!! YEP, fellow f-chatters FORD parts in our Italian cars.... could be alot worse coulda been Lucas..... Which reminds me why the British drink warm beer.... Anyhow, as been discussed prior, not enough surface contact area for a high amp draw... overtime contacts oxidize..resistance builds...voila melted fuseholder & definitely not a good thing to have. This fuse is located on passenger side under the front hood, remove felt (I just undid frame around the A/C blower thing & about 5 screws around the immediate area, enough to angle the felt to get up at it. Worth checking people, if it has not been updated to the bigger surface area fuse/fuseholder get on it. About a 20 minute fix & thats cleaning the other connectors around it also & applying deoxide. Chris Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Chris, that looks exactly like mine looked. And the thing is, the fuse was NOT blown, the filament was totally intact, but there was no current flow from one end of the fuse holder to the other, so there was no current to the climate control ECU. I had to figure that out for myself, in the days before FChat! I now have the nice stereo-type fuse and holder.
Exactly as mine, fuse in tact. I used one of those huge 30A fuse holders with the huge 30A fuse..from same source, Car stereo place. My A/C was working I just investigated it from all the reading here on the forum. One thing for sure its gotta be getting a better current flow now. As most know when voltage drops, amperage increases which means the motor could prematurely fail from a voltage drop condition.
My mechanic bypassed this part of the circuit and installed a self resetting breaker so the fuse cannot melt. BT
Breakers are great! For $2 you can buy a 30Amp breaker that installs in the fuse socket...thus replacing a fuse with a resettable breaker for pennies, plus no labor. http://www.doityourself.com/icat/breakerpullerholders Image Unavailable, Please Login
which is wonderful if the socket is NOT the problem however in this situation the original fuseholder IS the problem not the fuse.... Contacts get loose, not enough surface area for ampacity, slight oxidation....or a little bit of all. The holder MUST come out & be replaced. If you really want to get technical a fuse IS bulletproof, current exceeds fuse limit-it puffs, breakers can fail. I own a Commercial electrical contracting business & can show you 20A FPE breakers you can weld wires with... Chris
As I recall there was an excellent posting some years ago about this problem with the AC fuse holder and fuse. The writer provided step by step pictures of the replacement of the fuse holder and fuse with one of more dependable design. Do a search of the archives and you may find the thread.