So when I got my Brat, I saw this little dinky set of wires and noticed they were pretty beat up. From what I can read from the FSM, I can trace one of them back into the interior fuse panel, the lowest fuse. I also noticed that when I turn my high beam lights on the lowest fuse on the fuse panel gets extremly hot to the touch (I turn off the high beams before either the fuse pops or the fuse panel itself melts). Is there any way I can replace the wires coming out of the plastic plugs? Is there a new piece I can buy from rockauto? What is it even called? Some guidance would be apprciated.

 

Untitled by blue03wrx, on Flickr

 

As you can see, it leads down into the main harness that goes into the car:

 

Untitled by blue03wrx, on Flickr

Those two are the main fusible links. The white 10AWG wire (look on the harness) is the alternator lead, and the other one is the power for the entire car. It should get warm with headlights on, but mine never gets 'hot'. Check the ground inside the engine bay, its near the battery on the inside of the radiator support area. I had that ground go bad and it caused excessive amperage draw and blew a fusible link, as well as the fuse in the normal fuse box.

That was an issue and on many Subarus was NOT rectified despite a recall.

 

We have at least one good post on this issue.

If mine does not have this fuseable link could that be the issue on why my battery keeps draining? 

Not really. Battery draw is caused by a live circuit. Easiest way to figure out where it is, disconnect the battery ground and put a DMM (on DC volts) between the battery ground terminal and the negative cable. This should display a voltage reading of right around 0.2 volts with the car off and key off. If it's more, start pulling fuses and watch for voltage drop. This will help figure out which circuit it's on and you can go from there. Make sure all the grounds are clean and tight, add a few more if needed.

 

 

I had a headlight issue on my '78 Brat and I ended up putting in a new, larger power wire instead of the original, cleaned all the grounds really good and they worked perfect after. I might have also put a new inline fuse in the power wire as well but I don't recall.

Well I pulled the motor and am putting an ej in. So I was just curious lol

I found a 10 foot spool of 14ga link at O'Reilly for $7.99. They use large spade connectors, which are a bit hard to find, but if you can uncrimp the old ones, just reuse the originals and solder them on.

 

An EJ alternator would likely blow out that fusible link anyway, and your likely added draw from the swap through the other link (EFI fuel pump, ECU, idle controller, etc) in addition to all the existing accessories would likely take all the margin left. Cooper Bussman and other companies make dual Maxi blade fuse boxes, and adding real power distribution wire would be much better than trying to push 50A through 12ga stock wiring. 

Edited July 21, 201411 yr by djcommie

The wire is simply meant to act as a fuse. I plan to replace mine with a pair of circuit breakers.

Thanks for all the replies. I had my dad look at the wires and he said they should have no problem carrying the current through the electrical system. I was worried this was causing the fuse block under the dash to heat up. Which at this point, is still heating up but I have no idea where the issue is. My next step is to hook the 8 gauge wire that I ran into the cabin up to the + side on the lowest fuse connector. Replacing the factory power wire.

The back of he fuse block is known to get hot and melt due to a high resistance in one of the main power wires there. Pop it out and see if only can figure out which one it is, the wire might be brown from the heat.

The back of he fuse block is known to get hot and melt due to a high resistance in one of the main power wires there. Pop it out and see if only can figure out which one it is, the wire might be brown from the heat.

 

Thanks, I'll try to do exactly this over the weekend!