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Spare breaker ok?

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 3:26 pm
by SDPintheLBC
Well I was working under the dash and forgot to turn the power off and fried the turn signal breaker. Not sure how it happened but it happened. :oops:

Anyway, it's the only 4a breaker. The others are all 8a. Would it be ok to use the spare 8a breaker for this? And maybe put a 4a inline fuse?

Also, while unscrewing the terminal on the bad breaker, I broke it, revealing the protective circuit that fried. I think I can solder it back then glue the breaker back together. Is this advisable?

This is all on a '67 S.A.

Thanks for the help,

Mark

Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:09 pm
by Jimm391730
Yeah, you can use an 8A breaker as a replacement. The idea is that if the current getst beyond the original 4A, the breaker trips, saving wiring, connectors, and components from excessive current. Using the 8A breaker just means that "if" a short happens, it takes more current to trip the breaker. Usually it is a fairly hard short that happens, so the fault current is usually quite high anyway. The breaker's job is to interrupt that fault current quickly. The likelyhood of a "6A" fault current (that the 4A breaker would interrupt, but the 8A not) is not high.

Jim M.
712W and 710M

Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 3:34 pm
by SDPintheLBC
Thanks Jim. I'll go ahead and use the 8a.