Have a 16' Wilderness Yukon TT I use for high mountain campgrounds. I recently found that the clips are a little loose on two or three of the fuses. The lights may not come on until I tweak the fuse a little but it arks and gets very hot when I do that. Mentioned it to a shop and he said could take $150 to $300 to fix or replace it. Seems like a lot for some loose clips, but I haven't been able to find a way to access the clips, at least from the front. Has anyone had this problem or do you know how it might be repaired short of replacing the entire unit? I have enough electrical knowledge to be dangerous and I'm not adverse to doing it myself, but am relutant unless I know a little more about what needs to be done. Thanks.
Fuse panel
- Thread starter ronf
- Start date
C Nash
Senior Member
Fuse panel
ronf, are the fuse glass cylinder or the plug in spade type? If it's the cylinder type you should be able to just bend the terminals in some with a pair of needle nose pliars. If it's the spade plug in type an ice pick will generally work on closing up the female terminal some. Have you added any extra lights or replace any bulbs that might be pulling to many amps? You can buy the fuse panels at radio Shack. 150, 300 bucks seems high to me but so does $2.00 for a gallon of gas. Guess we all have to make a living.
ronf, are the fuse glass cylinder or the plug in spade type? If it's the cylinder type you should be able to just bend the terminals in some with a pair of needle nose pliars. If it's the spade plug in type an ice pick will generally work on closing up the female terminal some. Have you added any extra lights or replace any bulbs that might be pulling to many amps? You can buy the fuse panels at radio Shack. 150, 300 bucks seems high to me but so does $2.00 for a gallon of gas. Guess we all have to make a living.
Fuse panel
Murphy wouldn't make it so easy, they're the spade type. The clips are inset a little from the front cover and difficult to reach even with an icepick, but I'll give it another try. No, I haven't altered any wiring or load, they've just loosened up over time, maybe some form of metal fatigue? I looked in a couple of RV stores but didn't see any fuse panels, I'll check out Radio Shack. I may be trying to avoid the inevitable, yanking out and dismantling the whole unit. It's an awkward location and not easy to see how it's put together. Thanks for the reply.
Murphy wouldn't make it so easy, they're the spade type. The clips are inset a little from the front cover and difficult to reach even with an icepick, but I'll give it another try. No, I haven't altered any wiring or load, they've just loosened up over time, maybe some form of metal fatigue? I looked in a couple of RV stores but didn't see any fuse panels, I'll check out Radio Shack. I may be trying to avoid the inevitable, yanking out and dismantling the whole unit. It's an awkward location and not easy to see how it's put together. Thanks for the reply.
Kirk
Senior Member
Fuse panel
If you fix the fuse holders with the bend back method, it will probably be a temporaty thing. There are a couple of things that can be done. the best, although the hardest, is to replace the fuse block. I suspect that you can find a replacement at a local electronics supply house. Radio Shack is just a supplier to the amature but the ones who sell to prefessional techs will have what you need, or be able to get it. It may be quite a chore to do this though as you will probably need to disconnect and mark each set of leads from the old fuse block to remove it and install the new one. If you do that, I would put some slack into each lead to allow you to remove the fuse block without disconnection wires in the future.
The other long term fix is to get some in line fuse holders and replace each bad fuse position with one of those. That will be much easier to do, but it will also be much messier when complete.
Good luck!
If you fix the fuse holders with the bend back method, it will probably be a temporaty thing. There are a couple of things that can be done. the best, although the hardest, is to replace the fuse block. I suspect that you can find a replacement at a local electronics supply house. Radio Shack is just a supplier to the amature but the ones who sell to prefessional techs will have what you need, or be able to get it. It may be quite a chore to do this though as you will probably need to disconnect and mark each set of leads from the old fuse block to remove it and install the new one. If you do that, I would put some slack into each lead to allow you to remove the fuse block without disconnection wires in the future.
The other long term fix is to get some in line fuse holders and replace each bad fuse position with one of those. That will be much easier to do, but it will also be much messier when complete.
Good luck!
John Harrelson
New Member
Fuse panel
Ron,,
As a temporary fix until you get the time and money to do it correctly, simply use two pairs of needle nose pliers and....
hold the little "legs" (one at the time) of each fuse up close to the plastic head with one pair of pliers and with the other pliers simply grab the other end of the leg and twist it a little bit... not to much, you don't want to twist it like a pretzel,,, only enough to make it hard to push in to the slots..
I have done this on the spade fuses in my old car and it works great... the fuse are held firmly in place and make perfect contact.. There is no arcing or sparks and therefore no heat build up. Its a solid and safe connection.
John
Ron,,
As a temporary fix until you get the time and money to do it correctly, simply use two pairs of needle nose pliers and....
hold the little "legs" (one at the time) of each fuse up close to the plastic head with one pair of pliers and with the other pliers simply grab the other end of the leg and twist it a little bit... not to much, you don't want to twist it like a pretzel,,, only enough to make it hard to push in to the slots..
I have done this on the spade fuses in my old car and it works great... the fuse are held firmly in place and make perfect contact.. There is no arcing or sparks and therefore no heat build up. Its a solid and safe connection.
John
C Nash
Senior Member
Fuse panel
Ron, I have fixed a lot of fuse panels as I said in my other post and as John stated in his post. I am now driving a truck that had this problem and they wanted 500 bucks to repair. I could get to the panel and did as John said and that was 70,000 miles ago and the heater, wipers, lights have worked fine since. Did tell the boss before I did it that it might be a temporary fix. You should be able to purchase an exact panel if you want to spend the bucks but, I would take the amature route and go to radio Shack. You will have to make a diagram and lable what fuse protects which circuit if purchasing a fit all. A digital camera also comes in handy for keeping tabs on which wire goes where and do as Kirk said and label each. I would not go with the in line fuse for each circuit unless there are only a few. Would also help to clean the terminals where the fuse spade plugs. They tend to corrode over a period of time which creats heat which weakens the metal. (AJMO)
Ron, I have fixed a lot of fuse panels as I said in my other post and as John stated in his post. I am now driving a truck that had this problem and they wanted 500 bucks to repair. I could get to the panel and did as John said and that was 70,000 miles ago and the heater, wipers, lights have worked fine since. Did tell the boss before I did it that it might be a temporary fix. You should be able to purchase an exact panel if you want to spend the bucks but, I would take the amature route and go to radio Shack. You will have to make a diagram and lable what fuse protects which circuit if purchasing a fit all. A digital camera also comes in handy for keeping tabs on which wire goes where and do as Kirk said and label each. I would not go with the in line fuse for each circuit unless there are only a few. Would also help to clean the terminals where the fuse spade plugs. They tend to corrode over a period of time which creats heat which weakens the metal. (AJMO)
Fuse panel
Thanks everyone for the tips, some good ideas. Was momentarily distracted by problems with two other vehicles, hope you all got some work done while I had Murphy's full attention. Ideally I'd like to replace the panel but it depends how difficult it's going to be to see how it's put together. I think I'm going to use John's suggestion of twisting the spades as an expedient and Kirk's idea of in-line fuses would probably work because there's only two or maybe three that are loose. I'll put another note on when I'm done for the benefit of someone else struggling with that annoying little problem. Thanks again.
Thanks everyone for the tips, some good ideas. Was momentarily distracted by problems with two other vehicles, hope you all got some work done while I had Murphy's full attention. Ideally I'd like to replace the panel but it depends how difficult it's going to be to see how it's put together. I think I'm going to use John's suggestion of twisting the spades as an expedient and Kirk's idea of in-line fuses would probably work because there's only two or maybe three that are loose. I'll put another note on when I'm done for the benefit of someone else struggling with that annoying little problem. Thanks again.