AMC Eagle automotive breakers

 

Original diagram of inexact provenance

While replacing the dome light bulbs with LEDs (that post will be up when I’ve figured out what I broke to make them stay on all the time) I blew the dome light fuse, and I didn’t have another one.

original fuses (and my electronic flasher with polarity swapped)

Rather than buy a fuse I checked and found that for most higher values of automotive fuse there are breakers available.  These breakers take more to blow them than the original fuses, I know this because I blew the dome light one intentionally so I wouldn’t run down the battery and it takes more than a tap with a screwdriver to make them pop.  Despite the danger of having something less sensitive as part of my ‘please don’t go up in a ball of fire’ safety system I decided to go with breakers for convenience.

ditched

Our Eagles use standard (not mini, maxi, or micro) automotive fuses and values of 3, 7.5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 amps.  The 30A one is already a breaker in mine and I don’t have power windows so I can’t report on that one.

Living in the future

I replaced my 3A fuse with a 5A breaker, my reasoning is that usually there is not a low resistance path that causes heat build up that will hurt the vehicle.  Usually there is a dead short that if left alone to pass 50 amps or so will burn up the wiring quickly.  This breaker will still protect against that, but I admit I am opening myself up to potential problems on the lighting circuit.  If I ever find a 3A breaker I’ll install it.

The home page for this project is here, it has a link to the album of pictures.

AMC Eagle license plate light fix (LEDs part three)

In my endeavors to make everything on this car an LED I have decided to replace the licence plate light with an LED (a spare dome light).  All the documentation I saw said to replace this part ‘as a unit’ but they clearly have never met me.  This part is not the easiest to upgrade, but I did it anyway.

It fell apart after I opened it

After taking a dremel to the seam I found that the old heat-damaged plastic broke clean in half.  The bulb was so long ago burned out, but the goop that stuck down the spot welded leads was still soft.  I dremeled it off to scuff up the pads I could solder to and epoxy-ed back together the base.

Always use a backing you don’t mind will stick to the final product, that board would be hard to fit in the car

I let that cure overnight because I didn’t read that I had bought knock-off JB-quick instead of knock-off JB-weld.  The next day I cleaned up the edges with a dremel and removed the STEEL wires from the LED module.  Those are not copper, don’t notch your nice diagonal cutters trying to cut them in half, desolder them with liberal use of flux and heat.  The LED module was balanced on a pile of copper wire stiffened with solder and a ground wire added underneath.

Make sure to center it or you will hate it later

I then gooped many coats of epoxy under the LED to build up the post that isn’t quite tall enough (BTW, you made sure it would fit in the lens, right?) and built up a second column to support the LED module.  When that was dry enough to work I inserted the base back in the lens and slowly added layers of epoxy to make sure I got a seal all around.

Remember to label the pins for positive and negative, mine are labeled but backwards so doubly unhelpful

Sanded down the sides so it was flush-ish and would fit back in the hole it came out of.  Now I have another lamp I should never have to replace, there will be a picture of it here after I finish painting the newly blasted license plate holder.

there, nice and bright.  Forever.

The home page for this project is here, it has a link to the album of pictures.

 

AMC Eagle Air cleaner vacuum actuator

In my first post I noted that the pop rivets that held one of my vacuum actuators in place had broken so I taped it back on for the ride home.

Mystery part, janky fix

The advice I got from the forum was: “The thing you taped in place on your air cleaner is part of the TAC system, I believe.  That vacuum motor controls a trap door that should close when the engine is not running, I assume to control escaping vapor.  As long as it’s open your car should run fine.” which makes perfect sense.  That trap door springs shut (plastic flap, not a metal coil spring) normally and seems to be pulled open when the engine is running.  I tested the actuator (yes, I sucked on it) and it seemed fine so I thought I’d mount it back with some sheet metal screws to make the repair a bit more permanent.  Problem is, those holes are really big for sheet metal screws.  If I thought I would keep this air cleaner forever I would have tacked captive nuts on and bolted it back, but I don’t.

New rivets, new hose, all better

My fix was to use pop rivets (what a concept!) but I didn’t have the right size so I stacked some #6 washers to make up the gap and thickness.  I think it worked ok, but it also let me see how rotted the hose was so off I went to buy a roll of that.  The new hose was not the same ID so I also got some cheap hose clamps.  When I was all done I realized that I failed to slip the actuator around the bit it pulls on, so I had to bend it a bit to open it up and bend it back to close it around the rod sticking out of the door.  This is not a fix I needed to do, I could have plugged the hose and removed the door, but for now at least I know what it’s for and I have more hose and clamps for when more of it crumbles.  While I was in there I cleaned out the air cleaner, and wiped down/wire brushed everything I could get my hands on.  I will sandblast and spray this all later but for now I just wanted it back in place.

The home page for this project is here, it has a link to the album of pictures.

AMC Eagle electronic flashers

When I did my headlights I also did the turn signal bulbs… which broke my flashers.  The LED bulbs just don’t take enough current to trigger the mechanical flashers and the lights stick on.  I could have added ballast resistors to make the flashers work, but if I don’t then technically my car is more efficient.  That, and if I want to put regular bulbs back in (or someone else does) then it will still work.

Where, oh where, is the fuse block?

The thing I thought was crazy is that I saw zero pictures anywhere for how to access the turn signal flasher.  I couldn’t find it in the service manual, in the forums, or anywhere.  The Eagle has two flashers, one for the turn signals and one for the hazard lights, which is fine.

There it is! (yours may not have a janky extra fuse, this is probably for the old fog lamps)

The fuse block has two curved indents that look like they’re designed for flasher units, but only one is used.  The explanation I got and makes the most sense is that it was designed that way, but the turn signal noise was too quiet and they moved the turn signal flasher up into the dashboard to make it more audible.

Step 1, loosen those screws and pull this out

The flasher is behind the 4×4 switch to the left, and it should be easy for someone with smaller hands than me to get in and out (I did it, but the car took its pound of flesh).

There you are!

When installing electronic flashers remember you need a ground wire (I saw some solid state ones without it but I wanted a click), luckily there was a ground lug nearby that worked perfectly.  I extended the ground wire on one of the flashers so it would reach somewhere easy to install and once it was jammed back into the spring steel bracket grounding that wire was easy.  Before you do that, however, make sure your polarity is right.  I bought polarity sensitive electronic flashers (they make a polarity agnostic one but I was cheap, or maybe they only had one in stock) and the car was wired backward for them.  The mechanical flashers just heat up a bimetalic strip so they go both ways, but my new units are a little less flexible with which terminals are ‘exit only’.  The turn signal flasher was easy, jam a pocket knife in the spade connectors, swap positions, make sure to bend the tab back, and you’re golden.

purple, the universal color

The one on the fuse block was more trouble.  I decided that I would rather make a short jumper that swaps the pins than get in there and swap them.  One day I will have the seats out doing the carpet and then I will surely fix the wiring in the block, but for today this was fine.

The home page for this project is here, it has a link to the album of pictures.

AMC Eagle LED marker lights (LEDs part two)

This is a small post, but I think an important one.  I had no idea how to safely get the marker lights off my car.  I didn’t know if just the lens came off, if there were screws under it, if the previous owner had glued it on.  This is another thing I couldn’t find in the manual, they all just said ‘take them off’, ok but which part?

The whole thing comes off

On my vehicle this was stuck on so bad I thought maybe there were more screws I couldn’t see.  Of course now that I saw this it seems reasonable, but I can never be sure on these vehicles.  The LED light is polarity sensitive (what, four diodes would kill you?) so be sure to install it the right way around.  I have heard of a way of wiring the ground for these lights to the turn signals so they flash with the turn signals, but to do that with LEDs I’m pretty sure you would need a bridge rectifier.

Obviously I’m cleaning this

That’s it, really.  I just wanted to write down, somewhere indexable by google, that to change the marker bulbs you remove the screws and pry off the whole unit with the foam rubber seal.  The bulb socket is a quarter turn one and the bulbs are those flat ones that have really shitty bent leads as contacts.

The home page for this project is here, it has a link to the album of pictures.