Roy Chartrand North Texas Wheel

Automotive glass fuses are what most of us are used to dealing with. They provide a visual indication of

whether the fuse is good or bad. But what if the fuse on the left that looks good is bad?

I had a random occurrence on my early 80’s motorcycle where it would suddenly quit running then re-

sume with a loud backfire. The problem living in Texas is that everyone took it for gunfire and took cover.

The issue was the glass fuse supplying power to the ignition was fractured inside the metal base so it

wasn’t visible. I suppose that tension of the fuse in the fuse holder made the continuity but a bump or jolt

would momentarily lessen that bond and no ignition and no run. I also ran into another incident with the

same bike where after replacing all the fuses, I found that the fuse holders had lost some of their tension

& could also cause an intermittent failure. I tried to squeeze them tighter but ended up breaking several.

My solution was to replace them with modern blade type fuses. They are readily available & easy to spot

if a failure occurs.

Having had that issue with the bike, I decided to avert the same problem in my GT Hawk . I bought a 10

circuit fuse panel where an LED beside each fuse is off until the fuse fails in which case it lights to indicate

a failure. I wired the supply to this panel from the power on side of the ignition switch. I then took most of

the accessories such as electric fuel pump, radio etc. and wired them into this panel. Literally every fused

wire could be fed to a separate fuse on this panel. It’s compact, inexpensive (CASO) & easy to install

Fuse panel purchased from Summit Racing