I've just finished calling PepBoys, AutoZone, & the foreign car parts places in Nashua, NH trying to locate the glass bodied GBC fuses. All have the colored ceramic bodied ones, Only 1 said they occasionally get glass instead of the ceramic, but they can't control what their warehouse sends. Also haven't had any luck searching the net. Even when I get hits on GBC & 'glass' the detailed description says ceramic. One place told me that BUSS used to always be glass, but they've gone to the ceramic ones also. The BUSS catalog page for 'glass tube' fuses shows the GBC in ceramic & says nothing about glass. Does anyone know of specific mfgs & p/ns for the glass fuses? I need a set & have promised a customer in Shanghai that I'd send him a set.
Man, BUSS is pretty much it for fusing. Alternates might be Littlefuse? The # for them is 1-800-TEC-FUSE
Called LittleFuse's tech support(1-800-TEC-FUSE). After a couple of forwardings I got to Electronics fuse eng(800-999-9445). They researched a bit (5 min. on hold & & said LittleFuse only supplies the ceramic bodied version. Called BUSFUSE TEch support(636-527-3877). Was forwarded to an application engineer. He researched for a few minuites & came up with their engineering spec. He said that it's a roulette game! they ship glass, ceramic, or high temp plastic bodies all under the same part number. What style ships depends on what they buy on the world market & they're all mixed together in their inventory! There's no way to specificly order just the glass bodied fuse. He was surprised to discover that anyone cared as all 'meet the same fit & function specs. I explained about not wanting to blacken the fuse panel cover on a Ferrari. He apologised for not being able to offer a solution other than to call around in the hope of getting lucky!
That's interesting! Of course it figures they wouldn't care from a performance standpoint, electrically, but it seems the quality would be different, from the enclosed vs. exposed fuse link. I guess it doesn't matter at 12V DC, but I've seen horrific explosions at higher voltage CAUSED by failure of the casing to hold the molten material as it cleared a fault causing phase to phase flash over. Yet another manufacturer who really doesn't care about the Ferrari niche market, IMO.
Hi Verell, My local auto parts place had them last summer. I bought a couple of boxes. Unfortunately, the local place went out of business over the winter, but I'll check my local NAPA for you. Birdman
Search no more... I got Bussmann GBC glass fuses from here: http://doitbest.com/shop/product.asp?mscssid=EPLEWRK47Q218JBVCVJEXACAC1UVCJ1D&mbrid=4724&dept%5Fid=4663&sku=570710 SKU 570656, glass tube fuse assortment. You want the GBC ones for "german" cars, #KG-5. Place is called Aubuchon Hardware, under the domain name doitbest.com. I found their service to be excellent, and their online shopping/checkout software was very mature. Shipped really fast. Here's the details from my order: SKU Qty Description Cost ------------------------------------------------------- 570656 12 Fuse Assortments: For German $14.28 ----------- Subtotal: $14.28 (USPS Priority Mail) Shipping: $5.50 Tax: $0.00 Total: $19.78
EXCEPT for type GBC (aka 6x25mm, 25x6mm, 31/37" fuses.) Mike, BUSSMAN lists the type GBC fuses as 'glass tube', even tho they may be plastic or ceramic. So what you get from Aubuchon will be a roulette toss. BTW, I'm looking for 4 boxes each of 8 & 16 amp fuses. Birdman may have a lead on some.
Hi Verrell, I actually ordered these and was going to use them, before I decided to completely rebuilt the fusebox for $40 as posted in the archives... I returned them, but I think I kept one pack, perhaps? I can check. If I have one, perhaps I could post a picture? Would that help?