Inside a 3 lever BO Switch...

[skajm]

if this is on a m880 you SHOULD do headlight relays and amp gauge by pass. Catalog click on "catalog" to go to links for by-pass and relay. did this on my 69 car and 84 truck works like a champ. the led tail lights will need an "led flasher" unit. the standard flasher is like a circiut braker, LEDs do not draw the current to open and close the circiut. the LED flasher is a mini circiut card that turns on and off the lights.

joe

 

[bigugh20]

It sounds like you are at or very close to the rating on the breaker. Thermal breakers trip time varies with load,
so say you put 15 amps on a 15 amp breaker, it may take it a few seconds to trip, put 30 amps on that same element and it will trip much quicker.
Repeatedly tripping a thermal breaker will also degrade it over time, to the point where it may not reset or will trip at a much lower current value than rated. The only way to know is to put an ammeter on it.
Also dirty contacts do increase the heat generated in the switch because of increased resistance across the contacts.

 

[popacom]

I would consider substituting a known good switch and see if the
same reaction occurs with another sw ,then
you would have a pretty fair indication whether your drawing to many amps or your sw needs chucked in favor of a new one.

popacpm.............BILL KAGIN III

 

[tm america]

i would look at the contacts at the bulbs .It is 35yr old truck any corrosion or bad contacts will make it draw more amps. Leds will draw less than normal bulbs and should fix you up either way. so i would do more testing .I would pull all the bulbs and leave the switch unhooked then check for continuity to ground on all the wires. Then put the bulbs back in and check the amp draw at the switch.
If it tends to do it only when the trailer is hooked up i would look more at the trailer .a bad ground is most commonly the problem.i would run an extra ground between the truck and trailer just to be on the safe side.i had a similar problem with my deuce it was a bad relay i had run for my 12volt trailer lights.I changed the relay and problem solved .20 amps is easy to get to with the head lights on with the other lights to .Most cars and trucks dont fuse the head lights some are on relays but not many

 

[N1265]

SKAJM : Thanks for the link, I have read it before and did do the MOD for the firewall connector a few years back, I have not done the AMP gauge bypass yet because there are no signs of it being bad or overheating, However this is a mod that will be done in the future as time permits. I have read about the LED flashers but did not get one because the bulbs I got were marketed as
" plug and play " I will look into getting a LED flasher.


G FORCE, TM AMERICA : you guys might be on to something here, altho I have cleaned the ground from the tail light assembly to the bed of the truck and inside of the socket many times, today when plowing one of my backup lights quit working, Thinking the bulb was bad I puled it out only to find it in good shape. It is then I realized that the socket is pressed into the housing and there was rust there, after twisting the socket inside the housing a few times ( giving it a better path to ground ) it started to work again. when the weather breaks I will look into this area further with the sockets for the running lights / turn signals. when dealing with the light sockets , I am toying with the idea of soldering them to the light assembly itself to create a more positive ground less subjective to future rusting. But I am wondering if the pot metal they are made out of can be soldered ? will solder stick to it ?


I have cleaned the contacts and bypassed the internal CB of the switch that I had apart but have not installed it yet because I don't have time right now to wire in an inline CB / fuse to replace the the CB I bypassed. When time permits I will clean the sockets, install the switch and see if that works. If it don't then I will go ahead with the headlight relay MOD.


Many Thanks for your guys help and if you think of anything else or have any other comments please post...

 

[N1265]

for those of you following this thread :

I got around to bypassing the internal CB and wiring an inline fuse. It worked great except the fuse holder got pretty hot, The blackout lite switch got worm as well, but the fuse did not blow or the lites kick out. this was after running everything for 3 hrs ( brights and flashers ) no other wires or connections were warm.

Not being able to figure out why the fuse holder would get hot, but not blow the fuse
I decided to remove the CB entirely from my newer switch, and try a new inline fuse holder. This time I added 2, 8 in. pieces of wire to it so I could run the holder into the glove box
( to make it easier to change if needed ) and used a resetting ATC Circuit Breaker that plugs into the fuse holder instead of a fuse.

So far everything is working great, I can run everything at once for long periods of time and nothing gets hot.

Still a little confused why the the first set up would get hot, but so far so good...

 

[steelandcanvas]

Still a little confused why the the first set up would get hot, but so far so good...

What size wire are you running?

 

[N1265]

The inline fuse holder came with 12 ga. wires, I also used 12 GA. when I added the 2, 8 in. pieces.

All connections were crimped and soldiered on both set ups.

 

[cranetruck]

If the fuse holder gets hot, then your fuse contact areas probably aren't clean. Any resistance will cause a voltage drop and a consequent temperature rise...

 

[jwaller]

I remember when I first got my 5 ton, the lights would go out when it rained or got wet. so after this happened I could hear the breaker in the 3 lever trip. I'd give it a few min and then it would reset and I could drive again. this only happened maybe 6 times before the 3 lever would not reset and I had to buy another one. after the second one stopped resetting I replaced the harness and all is well since then.