Firstly a quote from a comment of mine from five years ago:
......the (now big!) grand-daughter is still perfect and we even acquired another perfect one, but who would have guessed from the above what was to happen to change my mind and the look of old Murf!
When I started to add electrical items and functions I fitted a small auxilliary fusebox. The four fuseways have been filled and I now need more fused feeds for activating the foglight, intermittent-wipers and a reversing light. There might even be more items in the pipeline, but even I don't know what.
The current "overflow" fusebox ended up in a bad location, low on the driver's inner front wheelarch, close to the headlight. That made sense in terms of optimally short wiring runs but seemed prone to being dislodged when working on things in the boot.
Then I had the idea of using a second Fiat 500 fusebox. These are quite handy little items which give a lot of flexibility for doubling-up fused-circuits and I even had an old one spare. But it was gummed-up with verdigris over the brass connectors; an overnight dip in my tank of weak phosphoric acid took care of that.
There appear to be at least two types of fusebox and two types of bracket which are used to fit the type that I have. I made a mirrored replica of the metal bracket as fitted on my car (omitting the part for the brake-fluid reservoir), and fitted it exactly opposite the original fusebox on the driver's (RHD) of the car. This necessitated me welding two studs to the wheelarch; but this is easily removed should I want to get back to originality.
Having stripped back the metal parts of the fusebox I became aware of a detail of the construction that I hadn't noticed before. There are six fuseways; but these are not arranged as isolated units as I thought, but comprise two pairs each connected by a busbar to share the supply from one feed. There are two other fuseways which are isolated from each other and the rest of the fuseways.
Once fitted it was straightforward to re-organise my wiring so that all of the accessories are now supplied from the new fusebox. There are a couple of permanently live feeds to operate headlamp and spotlamp relays and the hazard-lights and a feed which is operated by the ignition-switch for the supply to such items as the foglight and a USB-socket.
I must be getting better at this because I didn't blow a single fuse during the operations and everything works the way I intended. The only problem now is that I need to increase the variety of continental, "torpedo" fuses I carry because not all of my new fuses will be rated at 8 amps as original; I was previously using a range of blade-fuses of appropriate amperage. But I'm really pleased to have tidied up this aspect of the wiring.
back in the 80s.... A young bloke across the road from us had a 500 with spotlights on it; I thought it looked naff. The trouble is that; like everything added to the Fiat 500 I feel it takes away more than it adds.
Like my little grand-daughter, the little Bambino was born perfect and I wouldn't change anything
......the (now big!) grand-daughter is still perfect and we even acquired another perfect one, but who would have guessed from the above what was to happen to change my mind and the look of old Murf!
When I started to add electrical items and functions I fitted a small auxilliary fusebox. The four fuseways have been filled and I now need more fused feeds for activating the foglight, intermittent-wipers and a reversing light. There might even be more items in the pipeline, but even I don't know what.
The current "overflow" fusebox ended up in a bad location, low on the driver's inner front wheelarch, close to the headlight. That made sense in terms of optimally short wiring runs but seemed prone to being dislodged when working on things in the boot.
Then I had the idea of using a second Fiat 500 fusebox. These are quite handy little items which give a lot of flexibility for doubling-up fused-circuits and I even had an old one spare. But it was gummed-up with verdigris over the brass connectors; an overnight dip in my tank of weak phosphoric acid took care of that.
There appear to be at least two types of fusebox and two types of bracket which are used to fit the type that I have. I made a mirrored replica of the metal bracket as fitted on my car (omitting the part for the brake-fluid reservoir), and fitted it exactly opposite the original fusebox on the driver's (RHD) of the car. This necessitated me welding two studs to the wheelarch; but this is easily removed should I want to get back to originality.
Having stripped back the metal parts of the fusebox I became aware of a detail of the construction that I hadn't noticed before. There are six fuseways; but these are not arranged as isolated units as I thought, but comprise two pairs each connected by a busbar to share the supply from one feed. There are two other fuseways which are isolated from each other and the rest of the fuseways.
Once fitted it was straightforward to re-organise my wiring so that all of the accessories are now supplied from the new fusebox. There are a couple of permanently live feeds to operate headlamp and spotlamp relays and the hazard-lights and a feed which is operated by the ignition-switch for the supply to such items as the foglight and a USB-socket.
I must be getting better at this because I didn't blow a single fuse during the operations and everything works the way I intended. The only problem now is that I need to increase the variety of continental, "torpedo" fuses I carry because not all of my new fuses will be rated at 8 amps as original; I was previously using a range of blade-fuses of appropriate amperage. But I'm really pleased to have tidied up this aspect of the wiring.
