Fuse Block instead of Fusible Links

[gogmorgo]

Adding my $0.02 regarding the mention of circuit breakers, my own personal experience with them has me extra cautious about using them. 
This summer, the main power feed wires for the accessory control panel on our vacuum truck rubbed through and shorted to the frame. The self-resetting circuit breaker left the power flowing long enough and the cool-down and reset interval was short enough it turned that 6awg cable into a PWM heater element, that then lit up the wiring harness. Fortunately we were having a staff barbecue (burgers, not trucks) at the time within eyesight, so it got noticed before it couldn’t be put out with an extinguisher, and then it still flared up a couple more times again before we got the batteries disconnected. Otherwise we might have had the whole thing burn down, and probably the garbage truck parked next to it as well.

[boxyjeep]

I'm actually in the process of doing this myself on my '88 Comanche and using a fuse box/PDC from an early Grand Cherokee.  There's a lot of detractors here, unsurprisingly, but this will be worthwhile when I'm finished.  I've been able to reduce the harness down significantly and re-route most of it along the firewall (and shorten wires where possible).  By doing this I've eliminated the harness that runs around the front cross member, the fusible links, all the weird connectors on the passenger side, the crappy relay bracket, etc.  I'll be using fuses for all powered relays, as well as the always-hot circuits and downstream components.  One issue with the stock Renix wiring is the huge amount of splices that are wrapped with duct tape.  I'll be eliminating most of these and re-routing individual components back to individual fuses.  Also, replacing any wiring with appropriately-gauged wire.

 

Here is a write-up for someone else that did this: https://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f22/my-88-comanche-886068/index27.html

 

I'll be sure to add some pictures once my project is done.

[MLT Lulu]

Shamelessly stolen from Cruisers technical pics. 

I dream of getting rid of the fusible links, and this stuck out as a good thing to have.

 

[Torq_Shep]

Alright, yanked the other half of the harness last week and found my short fairly quickly. Rats had chewed 4 wires near the headlight connector those wires were touching eachother. One of the fusible links was bad but I replaced them all (except alternator one). Now engine side electrically I am mostly set. Still have very little working electronics in the cab. Going to look into that at some point but mostly concerned with the brakes and cooling system before putting it back on the road.