Amp Gauge Blow Up

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by RICK LAKE

GUYS Late note IMO wouldn't recommend running parallel curcuits. If you run 2 wires to and from the same terminals and one shorts out. Unless you cut it out of the curcuit it's only going to burn up the other curcuit too.

That would only be true if there was a catastrophic fault to ground on the dash ammeter line, not with a continuing increase in resistance on the gauge condition. And a possible catastrophic fault to ground occurrence exists on any configuration, ammeter or volt meter or no gauge at all. But I do agree with you on the 50 amp circuit breaker. There should never be a time that circuit breaker clicks off, ever, for any reason. If it does click off, chances are the problem is not going to clear itself during the short "reset" period. So, all things considered, a one-time slow-blow 75 amp fuse is probably better and just carry a spare in case the short was caused by something innocent, like bumping a wrench from the fuse box to the firewall, or the like. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of replacing that circuit breaker with a fuse.