DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Hi

I have a '59 A RHD which keeps blowing its 'supplimentary heater' 25 amp fuse (3rd from right) and as a result, cuts off the engine, lights - everything, leaving me coasting to a halt!

I've had an auto-electrician go through the whole car but he failed to find anything wrong, and so the problem remains. Has anyone had a similar issue or hazzard a guess as to the cause?

Many thanks,

Richard

Disconnect heater and see if that stops the problem.

As above . Sounds like heating element or motor are failing .

What I should have said was there is no supplementary heater fitted to the car. So its quite perplexing.

How original is the wiring, has it been messed with at all?

3rd from right? Horn? Low beam? Heater?

You could have a 6v gas ( petrol ) heater supplied as an accessory to the 356. It had a combustion chamber and a electrical fuel pump as far as I remember. The setup looked to me worrying as petrol was involved but I understood it worked well in operation. I don't think many cars still have them over here now though.

You should check to see if its still installed. Might be a defective fuel pump on the heater?

I would take it off my car straight away or decommission it if I had on my car.

Roy

Hi Richard
not quite sure whats going on with your car, but 356's are not the most sophisticated things electrically you may need to find a better auto electrician, I don't know where you are but if you are but if you get stuck I am based in SE London, on the subject of auxillary heaters Porsche built in the wiring for such heaters and driving lamps and various other accessory things regardless of whether they were fitted it could be someone has connected some wiring up at one end and its laying around at the other end shorting out from time to time.

Thanks for your help chaps.

It seemed to be related to the way the main battery cable was fed into the fuse box, overloading the horn fuse. We recently replaced the earthing strap and battery clamp, thereby transmitting greater load and blowing the fuse. Now we've sorted it, the lights are a bit brighter!

Richard,
The ignition is not fused - the feed is from fuse no.1 but on the "input" side. Maybe someone has got some connections wrong.
John