Fuse panel swap

[heeler188]

Hello, has anyone swapped out a fuse panel? I have a 85 vanagon with the ceramic fuses and was hoping that a 87-90 panel might work. I realize the detailed work involved. Does anyone have any input on what might work best?

Thank you

1985 vanagon gl
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1985 Tin Top

[skills@eurocarsplus]

you'll need the whole harness if you want to update to blade fuses...or you'll have a shit ton of cutting and splicing

just stick to what's there and fix terminal ends as needed.
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[Wildthings]

Find and use ceramic fuses with brass strips versus zinc ones and use a tad of dielectric grease on the ends of the fuses where they make electrical contact with the terminals in the box. Assuming your present box isn't damaged this will pretty much eliminate problems with the fuses.

[jimf909]

What problem are you trying to solve?

Ceramic fuses have the benefit of easy visual blown fuse detection and easy replacement w/out tools or fingertips of steel.
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- Jim

[GreenMachineVW]

I've done it. Not too difficult, but time consuming. I replaced almost the whole harness with the newer model, as I added many features from the later model (power windows, power mirrors, power locks, rear wiper and washer). In my case I think replacing the whole harness was easier than making a hybrid of the old and new, and I much prefer the newer fuse block with places for all the additional relays I needed. I also had the dash and interior removed to make removing and replacing wires much easier. My suggestion would be to pull a complete later model fuse block and connected harnesses from donner, although in my case fabricated a good bit of it with new wires and the proper terminal ends and plastic fittings.

[MarkWard]

I prefer the simplicity of the ceramic style fuse box. There is nothing that can really go wrong. The later fuse block is a “sandwich” of internal tracks that in some cases were not sized properly from the factory to handle some of the extended loads. The pins can melt the housings and in some cases fail internally. Creating intermittent problems. There are easier options to add more accessories without have to rewire the entire van.
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☮️

[SyncroCanada]

I'm with MarkWard, if you need extra circuits, get a separate fuse panel. I use a BLUE SEA SYSTEMS ST Blade Fuse Block in the engine compartment. If needed, use relays for headlights or other high power draws.

Keeping the wiring as original as possible will make trouble shooting with a wiring diagram possible, change too much and good luck remembering what you did when something fails. The next owner will be pooched.

I just swapped in a new fuse panel on an '86. Took about 4 hours and I had a used panel for parts. Fortunately I did not damage anything in the process. You are yanking on vintage wiring to get at the panel, so you risk creating more problems. I only did this because I had burned pins in the connecting blocks and there was no power to the ignition/fuel injection. Otherwise I would not have touched it.

[Sir Sam]

I'm not a huge fan of the ceramic style, but my biggest gripe is not having spares when I need them. Order a bunch of spares so you have them now and just keep them in the van.

I think my next complaints about them had to deal with corrosion, but that was also a different vehicle with the fuses in the engine bay, so I'm not sure the same applies to vanagon interior.
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'91 Carat Westy

87' Syncro + '87 Westy conversion coming soon

[tdivan82]

[DanHoug]

i pretty much despise Dremel tools but a good use for one is polishing the inside of the fuse holding tang with a brass brush... cleans them up shiny. get proper good CERAMIC GBC fuses not plastic bodied, and you'll be just as reliable as anything. face the fuses so you can see the strips, carry spares of each value and you'll have an Uncle named Bob.

GBC fuses also benefit from a dab of DeOxit D100 liquid in the needle bottle.
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-dan
60% of what you find on the internet is wrong, including this post.

'87 Westy & '89 Westy both 2.1 4spd

Past projects can be found at--
www.thefixitworkshop.com