:new: Well, I'm new here and let me start off by saying that this is a great site. There is so much usefull information.

Anyways, I got my 81 suburban 4WD from my step-dad for free one day when he finally got tired of messing with it... After I took it off his hands, he explained to me that there were some issues with the electrical along with the normal wear and tear of and old vehicle. Me being mechanicly inclined, I figured, no problem..... well I got knee deep into one day and found that he had replaced the wire off of the distribution block on the firewall that melts if there is any electrical spike. The reason for this is because he crossed the jumper cables one night and fryed the battery and wire. So he replaced this with two fusable links from a local automotive store... One that runs to the inside of the cab, and one that looks to run somewhere along the firewall down to maybe the starter or back up to the alternator. Well, thats not working at all....

So, my questions are... should these fusable links hold up with only 40amp fuses? One fuse blows every now and then and I can't figure out where the cause is coming from. (Its the one that goes down the firewall.) I'm pretty sure that the short is somewhere in the engine bay. I have torn apart the whole dash and repaired all the loose wiring and cleaned up anything on the inside that may cause a short. Now, Im wondering if there is a bad starter wire, or maybe a bad alternator. The battery charges at around 14.4 volts, but when that fuse blows, the truck runs off of the battery alone and runs like crap... PLEASE HELP WITH ANY IDEAS!!! THANKS.

a fusible link is a piece of wire designed to burn into if ever a short occurs there is no certain amp fuse in a fusible link,it is slightly smaller diameter than the wire it is protecting any parts store sells them just try to get the correct guage, if he replaced the fusible link with an inline fuse holder and installed regular 40 amp fuses like you would find in your fuse box it will blow them.
the only way a fuse would work is if it was the large bus fuses that are commonly used on late model vehicles instead of fusible links and even then 40 amp is not sufficient for something that goes to the alternator amperage of your alternater would help determine fuse size.