Tidying some wiring today and found this. It’s a weird connector on a positive cable. I thought maybe some kind of fuse but it was wrapped and shrink wrapped so if it did blow you would never know here it was unless you had put it there. Suggestions?
Immediately thought fuse, mg hid a massive fuse on the F in the starting circuit. Could it just be an extension/ repair link? Ps I'm just collecting tea from cinnamon lounge
It does seem very much like a fuse but why bury it in tape with no chance of ever finding it? Cinnamon lounge - nice. When you say tea, you mean dinner?
Whereabouts is the link positioned? Battery in boot on the '02? Or moved there during the swap possibly? Or a fix for one of those battery isolation switches maybe? And no, it's tea in both Yorkshire and Somerset, Breakfast, dinner, tea. Yes I know its called a lunchbox, but up here they call it a 'pack up'. And you won't believe what a fishcake is like in this neck of the woods.
It’s on a cable attached directly to the positive battery terminal. I don’t know where it runs to at this stage. Would deffo have been moved or put in when the battery was relocated to the boot.
Fire breaker, cuts power if melted by a physical fire, as opposed to over heating for example? Same principle as the valves on domestic boilers that stop oil flowing in the event of it going up.
So if there was a fire it's probably main ignition supply and so cut the power. I've fitted the impact switches (late 80s/early 90s injection ) to minis which I've stuck turbos on or supercharged as extra protection so fuel pump cuts, rover metro and 200/400 ones are ideal.
The physical fire cut off make sense. I suppose if that happens you’re not going to be trying to understand why the car won’t start or looking for a blown fuse. After much more Googling it does indeed appear to be a “strip fuse” or a “strip link fuse”. I need to follow it back and see where the cable goes. Well done all
not factory whatever it is, chase to source. i can see damage to the cable on the right side of pic so you'll want to follow it all the way to make sure its not taken out any other cables nearby
Was reading up on the MK1's auxiliary air valve and it got me thinking, would it be some sort of bimetal switch thingy... if it is no idea what purpose it'd be serving though.
Well well well, Today I discovered what this is, and why. Over on a BMW forum I frequent there is a thread running about relocating the battery to the boot. As we all know, since about the E30 in the 80s BMW have put their batteries in the boot. They run two wires forward, one is the main, big chunky, live cable and then another thinner live cable. The big chunky one is for cranking the engine. The thinner one is so that when the voltage drops in the big chunky one sensitive stuff like the ignition system aren’t affected. It is this thinner wire that has a 50 amp circuit breaker. This is standard. Every day is a school day
aha, interesting stuff. so basically the equivalent of the chunky red wire in your headlight loom from battery live to fusebox
