looking at my 69 fusebox, what is in the power slot in the top left- see pic below? I looks like a piece of lead? There is power to it. Never seen this, is it some rigging someone put in or should it have a real fuse?

i do have a power top, is it related?

Hmmmm, I see something that looks weird in the left lower slot of the fuse box in your pic. If it isn't a fuse (I don't think it is) you need to remove it BEFORE THE FIRE (as someone has wisely said on this forum).

Get a proper fuse in there that WILL blow if there is a short. They are very cheap.

That is not a power top related fuse (if that is what you were asking). The power top came stock with an auto reset circuit breaker attached to the firewall just to the right of the firewall tag (when looking from the front of the car) above the brake booster. It is a small rectangle approx. 1/2" wide by 1" tall with 2 studs sticking out.(See pic below) There should be a wire attached to each stud.

69 had the circuit breaker in the fuse box (where the metal pin is in your pic.)

That looks like a headlight relay which protects the circuit from the surge of turning the headlights on. I'm not familiar with what a FGF headlight breaker looks like, but my 65 Vette has one very similar to the photo.

Did the '69 verts not have these on the firewall? I know that is where the '68's are. I've seen a few of them mounted there.

The one in my pic is an auto reset circuit breaker. If it sees more than 30A it will trip, and automatically reset in a few minutes. I have a slightly larger 50 Amp one on my boat's minkota electric trolling motor.

The problem I see with running that metal pin in the fuse box and a breaker on the firewall would be if there was a short, it would trip the auto reset breaker, then it will reset and trip again, and reset, etc. To get it to stop you would have to pull the pin out of the fuse box, or disconnect the battery. Where as if there was a fuse there, it would blow the fuse once then you could trouble shoot it later.

Here is the power top circuit breaker on a '68 with no brake booster. Its the same place when there is a booster. You can see it just above the hinge spring on the firewall. Are the '69 's in the same place?

I would take out that metal pin in your fuse box and install a glass fuse.

I just found on page 12-9 of the 69 bird product info manual for this slot it says:

pwr Accsy
shorting bar -9791344
or
circuit breaker 1476675
a)convertible top
b)power windows
c)power seats

is this a "shorting bar"? I only have power top so I would see maybe they would use a shorting bar to go to the power top relay/breaker. I guess this would be done becaue why would you protect the cirucit with a fuse or breakers in front of the top fuse/breaker? anybody know if this is true?

I thought I had a pic of the breaker that goes there but I can't find it in my files..
My car has all three, power windows, seats, and top, and has the breaker in the fuse box. I don't believe the 69 had a breaker on the firewall (at least that I know of.) But I don't know where else one would be if it isn't in the fuse box. The relay for the power windows was behind the kick panel and was just a relay (no breaker there.) The 69 has the horn relay where the 68 circuit breaker is on the firewall.

This is what the breaker looks like.
https://secure.amesperf.com/qilan/Detail...mp;web_access=Y

there should be a fuse in the slot just below the flasher (top left)look in your owners manual if you have one for the right amp fuse.

I can't say what just the power top would have come with, but the power windows did get the circuit breaker in that spot. I would think there should be either a fuse or a breaker there.

Mine looks like this.

I found in the PIM, the shorting bar... looks like it was factory and not rigged. Page 276 in the PIM(assembly manual)

My 1969 350 firebird conv. had the "shorting bar" and it caused a fire.
I replaced it with a 40 amp circuit breaker.- the silver looking thing shown in a previous post
The 40 amp breaker was standard on high option fb's with lots of accessories, and bigger pontiacs.

Replace it ASAP. Any short from the switch back to the top pump will cause a fires.

Also there are two kind of circuit breakers an inny and an outty.
you want the one where connectors point out

Well thats a new one for me. I am glad you posted it Rick, Thanx !! If the factory bypassed that fuse with a bar, there must be something else somewhere to protect that circuit in the event of a short.

see:

http://www.autozone.com/autozone/accesso...ier=600445_0_0_

I cant find much on the wiring diagram for the 69 vert convertible top, but dont see anything inline that would prevent overload unless the switch itself would have built in overload protection?

Any idea what amp breaker I should use? I see ames sells a 40a and a 30a breaker?

Just measure your wire. Fuse/breaker size should always be based on the gauge of the smallest wire on the circuit. Here's a pretty decent chart here to give you an idea:

http://www.oznium.com/forum/topic15761

If the top circuit is an 8 gauge wire, you can use a 40 amp. But if it's a 10 gauge wire, you should go no bigger than 30 amp.

But I wouldn't bother if it were my car. Pontiac built it this way. It's fine.

Also, 1969 service manual, page 12-37, figure 12-39 gives wiring diagrams and mentions of all the different option configurations for 69 Fbird. Just about every configuration has "circuit breaker" at that location, however a 69 with a power top ONLY had a "power take-off" and no circuit breaker at this location, and it feeds power thru to a relay. That "power take-off" is certainly referring to the non-fused shorting bar circuit that you have.

67 and 68 are wired completely differently with their power tops...no relay is involved on the earlier years, and the power doesn't even come thru the fuse box at all. But 69 has a completely different configuration.

Pontiac put that bar there and there is nothing wrong with it. Everyone seems to have forgotten that the entire electrical system is fully protected by fusible link(s), placed well before the fuse box. So if the wires coming into and out of the fusebox at this circuit is the same wire gauge as the main fusible-link protected circuit, then I can totally see why there is no need for a fuse at this location and why Pontiac put a shorting bar in place. If the circuit shorts, the fusible link will burn up to prevent a fire. So I see little reason to double-protect it as you propose. You'll just be protecting (sort-of) your fusible link with a breaker (assuming your fusible link(s) are unhacked). But you won't really be protecting it either, because as stated earlier it will just keep resetting itself and repeatedly putting power to the circuit, then cutting off, over and over again until the battery dies. So if you still REALLY think this bar needs to be swapped out, I recommend you put in a fuse instead of a breaker.

Why did Pontiac put a breaker in line here to protect the more heavily optioned birds? Just in case someone caught in a sudden downpour tries to run up the power top and 4 power windows all at the same time. Too much current is drawn, circuit overloads and trips the breaker, but no damage is done and nothing to fix...no fuse to replace...breaker resets itself and hopefully the second time the very wet and confused owner closes the top and windows individually next time. So those auto-reset breakers are really a convenience option more than a protection thing (auto-reset breaker is more convenient than a fuse), since Pontiac strangely decided to put a whole bunch of power drawing accessories at ONE circuit on the fusebox. But if a car has ONLY a power top and manual windows, there is no possibility of overdrawing that circuit with just the pump, and therefore no need for a convenience breaker. So Pontiac decides they might as well just put in a shorting bar instead. After-all, if a TRUE short develops in a wire somewhere, the fusible link at the battery or junction box (the horn relay on 69's I think?) will protect the car's wiring.

I obviously can't speak with any confidence to Larryneworleans fire, as I did not see the car...but I will speculate: It probably was not the direct result of the shorting bar being in place, but more likely the result of someone bypassing or eliminating or oversizing a fusible link at some time in the car's history. This has always been EXTREMELY common practice among ignorant shade-tree mechanics, and very dangerous because it usually masks an unrepaired short, and later causes fires. But if a proper fusible link was in place, it would have sacrificed itself and cut power long before any fire could start.

I am now using the 30 amp.
In my case the body shop jammed the top mechanism and then rode the switch, this burned out the orange wire that goes from the fuse panel to the horn relay causing a small fire at the firewall.

Unless you owned and serviced your vehicle exclusively and have checked the engine bay wiring minutely most of the fusible links have long since fused and been bypassed/replaced with something by somebody, somewhere.

As far as depending on 40 year old fusible links, they are not what they used to be and finding and repairing old brittle wiring is not as much fun as some people think.

This was true on my 350 conv and my 400 coup. that wiring is OLD.

thanks crazecars and Larryneworleans! I will check the fusible links to be sure they are there. Anyone save me some time by letting me know where they would be?

Agreed entirely. I've rewired about 80% of my 68. Including replacing all the fusible links, as well as adding a few due to relocating my battery to trunk and other mods. And my car's wiring, like most, was one terrifying and brittle hack job before I fixed it.

As for where they are supposed to be, what color, etc...I do not feel confident in describing the proper colors and locations for a 69, as I do not own one and haven't studied the wiring diagrams. 69's have quite different wiring routing when compared to the 67/68's. The only thing I will say with confidence is that conventional widsom says a fusible link should be 4 gauges smaller than the wire it protects. So, for example, a 10 gauge wire needs a 14 gauge link to protect it.

Certainly they're all marked in the service manual wiring diagrams, and that would be the best resource to use I believe.

And despite my essay above, I don't mean to imply there would be a problem created by dropping a fuse or breaker in place of the shorting bar. Clearly double-protection on the circuit will hurt nothing but originality, and it would add only a very mild complication in trouble-shooting in the event of a circuit failure.

found out the 69 convertible top has a seperate circuit breaker mounted outside of fuse box so the shorting bar is correct and it is protected, just outside of the fuse box. Looks like it uses the same breaker as the 67-68 according to ames catalog.

thanks for all the input

Good to hear. Any idea where the breaker is located? Maybe (likely) you have one somewhere.

I agree the fuseable link will protect the circuits, but its a LOT easier to change a glass fuse than a fusible link should something go wrong.

Also if the fuseable link blows, what else is affected? Ignition? Starter? 4 way emerg flashers? Headlights? The whole car? Will it leave you stranded? It just seems too easy to have an auto reset breaker or a 20A glass fuse blow if there is a short in the power top or power seat / window circuit. At least you will still get home.

Just my 2 cents worth exactly what was paid for it. LOL!!!