At 08:41 PM 10/9/03 -0400, Jorge wrote:
>Volks in the past week I've had some troubling experiences with those
>plastic jelly bean fuses.  As soon as the weather turns colder, my Westy
>begins to blow fuses like pop-corn (Well, ok I'm exagerating) The one I
>seem to loose the most is the windshield wiper one.
<Snip>
>My question/concern is:
>1) A fuse is a fuse is a fuse right??? as long as is the right Amp

I agree with your FLAPS guy, a 16 AMP fuse that fits, is a fine replacement.

>2) I've fooled around so much with the fuses that I'm not even sure I have
>the right ones in the right places. I've checked the Bentley but I'm
>confused cause the Bentley lists more fuses than what I have in my fuse
>panel, anyone knows the right amperage I need to use on each slot??? I'll
>probably replace all the jelly bean ones for glass ones as a "Smokey The
>Bear" strategy.

You can trace them out in the Bentley.  For the 85, 7 of them are on page
97.63 with the amperage rating beside 'em.

If they're blowing that much though, there's probably a problem with either
the wiper motor, the wiper bearings or the front heater blower motor.  Both
of those motors share Fuse 10 (In mine at least, I dunno if Westfalia
changes that) which is supposed to be a 16 Amp.
That's why they're blowing more often now.  The heater blower is probably
on at the same time as the wipers in this cooler weather.
You might, if you have an Ammeter, Take out fuse 10 and measure amperage
across that socket with only the wipers on, then with only the blower (Low,
medium and high) and then with Wipers and Blower on high.
Maybe someone else on the list will check theirs too (I don't have a
battery in my van right now, Sorry) and you can compare your results with
theirs...  If one motor's readings are significantly higher than the other
person's readings for that motor, find out if the bearings are dry and
sticky and putting excess load on that motor.  I constantly blew fuses on
my Cabriolet, turned out the bearing was full of crud and the motor was
overworked.

Best of luck to ya.  I hope you find it somewhere easy.