Blown Main Fusible Link

[jglutz]

Lead-Acid battery efficiency goes DOWN below a minimum threshold and above a maximum! Extreme low temps slow, and can even stop, the electrolytic reaction between Pb and SO4 (or is it SO2, I can't remember right now...)

H2SO4?

However.... Commercial ice temperature is usually only slightly below 32F, often in the 26F-28F range. That's not low enough to adversly effect a new lead-acid battery. Temps below -10 are where things get hairy.

Whats the freezing point/melting point of battery acid....that the hairy point.

Oh, and stay away from DieHards.... They're made by JCI (Johnson Controls Inc), and really aren't that great, based on my personal experience.

And Mine Too!!!

At any rate... We probably sat for somewhere between 10-20 minutes with the car off and the heater on. Would've that drained the battery enough to the point where it could be blowing these fuses until it's charged back to a 12.20? What if I stick my trickle charger on the red top? Will I be able to charge it enough to get back to that?

It's worth a try!

[SimonTuffGuy]

I'll try charging the thing a bit when I'm home tomorrow to see if that helps. Seems pretty dumn that simply having a slightly drained batter would be blowing the fuses when it's charging. FWIW, I yanked the heater out since it'll soon be warm enough not to need it.

Now that I think about it though, I believe when it happened before (on my way home from NY), my car was sitting with the little heater running as well. I got stopped because the car in front of me lost control and slammed into the front of a semi truck and I stopped to see what I could do...

I'll report back tomorrow once I try that.

[Pu241]

This should answer the freezing point of a battery!
As one would expect it depends on it specific gravity, which in turn is a measure of its concentration and ultimately its state of charge.
Check page 2 of the link below:

http://www.unionbattery.com/images/2.6.pdf

[cheetah85]

My 1991 Festy did the same thing. It kept blowing the main fuse. I never did figure out what was causing it so what I did was instead of replacing and blowing the fuse, I bridged the two blades with a short piece of very thick wire. Possibly 10 guage, with no fuse. That was three years ago and I drive it to work every day. By no means am I telling you to try this but it works for me.

[jglutz]

This should answer the freezing point of a battery!
As one would expect it depends on it specific gravity, which in turn is a measure of its concentration and ultimately its state of charge.
Check page 2 of the link below:

http://www.unionbattery.com/images/2.6.pdf

Nice post....great graph1
Always a great bonus question for any test....convert -40°F to °C.

[SimonTuffGuy]

cheetah - I was thinking of doing that exact same thing. But, I'm thinking that it COULD cause a potential burn hazzard. I'd hate to see Casper go up in flames over something as stupid as a fuse.

I'm going to try charging the battery up tomorrow to see if that is what's causing the problem. If I can't find anything else, I'll bridge the connection and look for sparks.

[Damkid]

My 1991 Festy did the same thing. It kept blowing the main fuse. I never did figure out what was causing it so what I did was instead of replacing and blowing the fuse, I bridged the two blades with a short piece of very thick wire. Possibly 10 guage, with no fuse. That was three years ago and I drive it to work every day. By no means am I telling you to try this but it works for me.

i did something similar, i just connected the 2 wires together just under the fuse box, and that was 4 years ago and my car hasn't burnt yet :lol:

[25Horseplay]

Do you have another battery you could put in temporarily? Just to test this out?

[scitzz]

My 1991 Festy did the same thing. It kept blowing the main fuse. I never did figure out what was causing it so what I did was instead of replacing and blowing the fuse, I bridged the two blades with a short piece of very thick wire. Possibly 10 guage, with no fuse. That was three years ago and I drive it to work every day. By no means am I telling you to try this but it works for me.

Wow, just seems scary to me, I would try a larger fuse if this works, although, last october, I saw a faulty wiring job on the rotating lights on the tow truck I was driving almost set the cab on fire, fused with just a 20 amp, never blew, but burned every wire in the cluster for about 5 feet!

[SimonTuffGuy]

I have the battery from my Jeep that I could transfer over to see if that solves the problem. I'm going to try my charger first to see if that'll help it at all. I got it for Christmas last year and I haven't really used it yet, so this will be a good test for it.

As for the wire connection vs. fuse, I had a problem like that in my first car I had. I wired in some black lights and such and crossed some wires somewhere... I went to turn them on and just started melting the wires. No fuse blew or anything.

[Pu241]

[Always a great bonus question for any test....convert -40°F to °C.

:lol:
Yeah, one of those things you pickup over time along with the usual points of reference.

-40°C = -40°F
0°C = 32°F
100°C = 212°F

[SimonTuffGuy]

Well... I'm going to try putting the Jeep battery in the car I guess. The charger isn't going to put out enough juice to get it back into the 12+ range.

We'll see how that goes.

[phantorn]

[quote="SimonTuffGuy"][I wired in some black lights quote]
Now you are sure showing your age.....LOL

[SimonTuffGuy]

Haha... No, I'm just showing how much of a ricer I was when I was 16... :lol:

[dahodges]

sounds like a weak batt to me good luck