unknown problem

[MadCityMike]

I just bought a couple of them today from the stealer.    I didn't know if regular parts places carry that type and they were only a couple of bucks a piece.    Part # is: N-017-125-1          50 amp fuse

Not to hijack this thread, but I had a similar problem today:

While trying to figure out why my Jetta wouldn't start this morning I figured glow plugs and started looking for the fuse.     Bently wasn't much help and I found some web sites that mentioned that it was located near the strut tower.    I looked and sure enough there was one of them fuses right by the strut tower and it was corroded to the point that it was in pieces.   I stuck a piece of wire inbetween just to make sure there wasn't something else wrong and it didn't do a thing.  So then I was thinking relay and while searching for the relay I found the little black box on the firewall with the glow plug fuse.     That was corroded to the point of there being nothing left as well.    I stuck a wire in there and viola!!!   Car started perfect.

I later found out that the first fuse I was looking at was for the fan controller.    After replacing both fuses with real ones I sprayed them with some of that battery terminal greasy paint stuff to hopefully keep them from corroding away again.

Question for the gurus:   After cranking for quite a while this morning due to no start I hooked up a remote starter switch to get power directly to the gp bus bar and it fired right up afterwards, but it made a hideous sounding racket for like a 1/4 - 1/2 second that sounded like valves hitting.    Is it possible to essentially hydrolock a motor by cranking it for a while and not having it fire?    Was that noise indicative of something bad?   It's been running fine since, but that noise did not sound good at all.

[QuickTD]

Is it possible to essentially hydrolock a motor by cranking it for a while and not having it fire?

Doubtfull, what usually happens is the cylinders get loaded up with a large quantity of fuel. When the engine finally fires all that fuel combusts at once and produces some fairly loud diesel clacking for the first few strokes accompanied by a glorious cloud of black smoke. I wouldn't worry about it.

[jtanguay]

Is it possible to essentially hydrolock a motor by cranking it for a while and not having it fire?

Doubtfull, what usually happens is the cylinders get loaded up with a large quantity of fuel. When the engine finally fires all that fuel combusts at once and produces some fairly loud diesel clacking for the first few strokes accompanied by a glorious cloud of black smoke. I wouldn't worry about it.

glorious cloud of black smoke... brilliant!

[Patrick]

Two choices:

1) go to the dealer and get another fusable link (get two and put the spare in the glovebox with a screwdriver)

2) Get a 50 amp circuit breaker and never change it again. Any place that sells truck parts should have them on the shelf, two terminals sticking up to hook to. Just make sure you get one that has ears to mount it with, some of them snap into place instead of bolting down.