Color Coded Fuses

[Mark F.]

Does anyone have a source for color coded fuses. I saw them on ebay, but were $40.00 for 5 of them. Seems to me I heard that there is a vendor out there that still sells them. Any help would be appreciated.

Mark 39215

[Donald M.]

Re: Color Coded Fuses

Mark, Lectric Limited sells color coded fuses. I'm not sure of the price.
Don

[Mark F.]

Re: Color Coded Fuses

Thanks. I'll give them a try. I've ordered T3 headlights from them before.

Mark

[mike mccagh]

Re: Color Coded Fuses

junk yards have the color-coded fuses. last repo's i saw had the color painted on the outside of the glass tube. real ones have color on inside wall of glass tube. look for caddys, olds, buick etc of the 50 and 60's. trucks have em too. good junkyarding. mike

[William C.]

Re: Color Coded Fuses

Color coding started in the mid-60's not much use to look before then, try '65 up any GM car

[mike mccagh]

Re: Color Coded Fuses

i'm sure you are correct clup. i got a complete set out of the 78 chevy pickup i bought new and then used to build the 57 4x6 dually extended cab big block pickup for our son. also got a bunch out of late 60's and early 70's caddys that ended their lives here on the funny farm.when ya gonna come to cumberland and run autox. aug 20-21, sept 17 and 18, and last one being on oct 29 and 30th. we have a picnic the saturday evening of each weekend we run.here at the farm, reminescent of the labor day at the farm events midatlantic ncrs staged from 83 thru 99 or whatever. try it , you'll like it. mike

[Mark D.]

Re: Color Coded Fuses

Pete Lindahl carries the original fuses as well as many other neat old parts such as flashers, etc.
pclindahl@comcast.net
505-663-0995

Regards,

Mark Donnally

[Gary S.]

Re: Color Coded Fuses

As Mike says, your local salvage yard probably has them by the dozen, if they still have 60s and 70s cars. I pick up a dozen or so, each time I visit mine. Same thing with interior chrome screws and such.
Gary

[Gene B.]

Re: Color Coded Fuses

Color Coded fuses are only in very late 66 cars and newer up to 78. After 78 they went to the plastic fuse stat. The repos have the paint on the outside. Most of the fuses are BUSS or ACG and are identified on the metal ends of the fuse.

The colors corresposnd to different amps for the fuse.
Pink 3-amps
Purple 4-amps
red 10-amps
blue 15-amps
yellow 20-amps only application I have seen for yellow is air conditioning.
clear 20-amps
green 30 amps

There is also a short 5-amps fuse used in 69 and up which has a beige dot on the outside of the glass.

DIfferent manufactures offer different colors. Ford uses a shorter fuse and the colors are different. Green, brown and silver. Little Fuse offers a, I think 20 amp, fuse which is paper coated.

[William C.]

Re: Color Coded Fuses

I believe Littlefuse was the oem supplier in the '60's and Buss an alternate. They would have been the only two we used at Packard Electric, GM wiring division at the time. The color coding was used when we switched from hand assembly of fuses in the car plants to automated assenbly at the wiring plants. Think of the potential for mixing look-alike fuses in large feeding hoppers going into automated assembly equipment. Thus the colors were added as a requirement to facilitate the automated assembly.

[Jack H.]

Add-on

FWIW, I've pulled dozens of original color coded fuses from scrap yard cars over the years and have seen BOTH color coding on the inside as well as the outside of the glass. If memory serves, the difference appeared to be related to time of mfgr and supplier source with Buss doing it one way and Littlefuse doing it another way.

Both approaches have drawbacks. When colored on the outside, the paint can flake off leaving the fuse without color coding. When colored on the inside, identifying paint can chip, flake and accumulate inside the fuse vial and 'appear' to be residual conductor element from a blown fuse....

[William C.]

Re: Add-on

You are correct, inside vs outside application was determined by the vendor, not required one way or the other.

[Terry M.]

Re: Add-on

Jack & Bill,

That might be an interesting addendum to Pete Lindahl's article on color-coded fuses which was in The Restorer several years back. I don't recall that the article contained that tid-bit regarding the location of the paint color.

[Brian M.]

Re: Add-on

So who did it on the outside and who did it on the inside?

[Jack H.]

Grumble...I'll rummage my bits box & report... *NM*