Lousy fuses, or something else wrong?

[jwakil]

I keep having issues with the fuse for the fuel pumps on my 930. The fuse doesn't blow, but the ceramic body somehow deteriorates and shrinks due to heat I assume, and then loses contact with the fuse panel terminals. I've replaced it two or three times. Are these just cheap fuses (bought one set from Autozone and one from Orielly's) but seem to have same issue. If I was drawing too much current, I would assume the metal would blow, but it doesn't. Also, the contacts to the fuse panel seem clean.

[Nick Triesch]

I have had this problem with the AC fuse in the fuse box. Same thing, does not blow, just kind of melts. I bet that the fuses from Autozone and such are the cheap plastic type. They are terrible. I solved my problem by ordering real ceramic fuses from Germany. My problem went away for over a year now. I also bet that when our cars were new they came with ceramic fuses installed.

[reachme]

Glad tour problem is solved but my first thought is to make sure tight contact. It should take some effort to remove. shouldn't be generating much heat there if clean contact and they are in tight no matter how cheap the plastic is.
I use plastic which Im sure are factory and they are tight and never had an issue (I did clean all of them and panel looking for a parasitic drain 2 years ago)
I also had a 71T and they were all plastic and worked fine too. Our host sells plastic in their kit last I checked.
Your problem may be connection too loose or vibration. good luck

[Jonny H]

The issue is partly the plastic fuses and partly the spring contact holder.

The holders are marginal at best for sustaining continuous high current as the contact area is very small.

Both the AC fuse and the fuel pump fuse suffer (especially on Turbo cars)

[T77911S]

pull the wires out of the fuse block for the fuse and clean the wire ends and the end of the screw.
any corrosion causes resistance which adds heat to the already overloaded circuit.

you can do what I did. I split the fuel pumps to 2 fuses and it looks original.
basically I cut the wire to I think fuel pump 2's relay and ran it over to a spare fuse. then I ran another red wire from the supply side of the original FP fuse over to the spare fuse. (I don't have fog lights so I had that fuse slot to use).

very important!!
I cut the wire at pin 30 of pump 2 that FEEDS relay 1. if you cut the wrong one you are screwed.
that way you have enough wire to reach the new fuse.

[jwakil]

Originally Posted by Nick Triesch

I have had this problem with the AC fuse in the fuse box. Same thing, does not blow, just kind of melts. I bet that the fuses from Autozone and such are the cheap plastic type. They are terrible. I solved my problem by ordering real ceramic fuses from Germany. My problem went away for over a year now. I also bet that when our cars were new they came with ceramic fuses installed.

I always suspected cheap fuses to be the main problem. They are definitely not ceramic since ceramics shouldn't shrink.

By the way, has anyone noticed how Oreilly and Autozone are always located pretty close to each other? I thought they might be owned by the same parent company but apparently not. Could have same suppliers though.