55A Battery Fuse

[ANTHRAXXX]

Hello!

Question about the T2 Turbo's 55A battery fuse wire. Exactly what does it do? What's supposed to happen if it's not there at all or burnt-out? should the car not start? does it mean it isn't ' earthed '? Will starting/running your engine without it cause other electric parts to smoke/burnout?

It seems pretty low-tech, like it's literally a peice of household 55amp rated fuse wire...can you replace it with a typical blade-type auto fuse?

Would love to know....

[ANTHRAXXX]

More on this..

Noticed my fuse wire was broken, but was enough there to re-thread it. Started the car, fired up etc, idles fine, soon as I started to squeeze the throttle, puff of smoke & no more fuse. Engine still runs but obviously I shut it off & dissconected the battery after that. What can cause this? Any obvious things I need to be checking? Dead-shorts somewhere in the car or just dodgey under-rated fuse wire....?

[turbocab]

i am assuming that you mean the fusable link in the engine bay?inside that little black box on the drivers side? they are ment to be a thin plate of metal,copper i think so yours may have been replaced with wire after blowing.
make sure that the earth cables are attached firmly,
from memory there is one that runs from the gearbox to the body of the car it is just as important as the one on the battery.
it is also a good idea to replace these cables with new thick ones.my car had similar troubles until i replaced all the cables with new ones.
matt