Why the Car doesn't start

[DGW]

Here is a new and interesting reason why your Turbo won't start. Mine is a 77. I went to start it yesterday and it cranked but no fire. Since this wasn't a new experience for me I pulled the fuel pump relays and jumped the 30/87 pins to see if that fired the pumps. No joy.

After lots of futzing around trying to figure out where the power went, this is what I found out. I had 14 volts at the battery in side of the fuel pump fuse. I had the same at the spring clip on the output of the fuse. I only had 6 volts on the block that the wire attaches to on the bottom of the fuel pump fuse. This is a big WTF.

I can only assume, since I haven't verified yet, that there is corrosion between the spring clip that holds the fuse and the block that holds the wire. These must be two pieces and some googling suggests that they are attached by a rivet from the backside of the fuse block. This to me seems like a rather unusual failure. I tried some contact cleaner but that did not work. A piece of wire between the two blocks that the wires attach to on either end of the fuse got the car running. Essentially bypassing the fuse.

Other data, my fuse and relays run very hot. The red wire off the bottom of the fuse was very corroded and the insulation was black and bubbled so there was definitely something bad going on there. Also, the fuse was burned on one end. I have never seen one of these fuses as black as this one.

I will be doing one of the "two fuse" solutions for the fuel pump relays.

[T77911S]

part of the problem is that it does get hot and perhaps has started to melt.

i dont know how the fuse blocks are made but i would try to repair it, or move it to a fuse that is not being used if you have one.

here is what i did.
i had a spare fuse. the fog light fuse. (no fogs). so i split the power going to pins 30 on the relays. i moved one over to the fog light fuse. then i jumperd power from the top of the original fuse over to the fog fuse. it looks orginal, it puts the pimps on 2 fuses and you cant tell anything has been done.