 We're going to do a little segment on how to videos, so we're going to start off with replacing fuses, something pretty simple that most of you guys can do if you're running to issues either at home or on the side of the road, you need to get yourself by. So first we'll talk about what fuses are for. Fuses are there to protect the circuit and the modules and the components that that power is feeding to that circuit. So for instance real simple one that if you're going to replace one you guys will probably come across more commonly would be your outlet for plugging in your cell phone or charging up something in your car or running your GPS. If you overload that circuit it will pop a fuse and that fuse you'll find in the fuse box. So the fuse boxes are usually located just one underneath the hood. There's usually a couple in the passenger compartment. I've seen them under the rear seat before and there's some in the trunk too. So if you go to your owner's manual you'll give you all the information on where those fuse boxes are located. It will also tell you what fuses to use as far as amperage and we'll go over that and what that fuse circuit will run and the corresponding number of where to find that fuse in the box. That's how they locate them. So there's many different types of fuses. We won't go through them all because there's more and more every day. They bring out different styles. The main ones you guys will probably be getting into be your blade style fuses. Those are the ones that will run those things in the interior that you might have issues with. There's two pins. There's three pins blades and we'll talk about that in a little bit. So first I guess we'll this Chevy truck here GMC truck. We've got a fuse box underneath the hood. We'll kind of just show you what it looks like under there and how to change a fuse. Okay so in this truck this is the fuse panel. There's a little bit of information on the top of it. They don't want you pressure washing obviously and pushing water in where the electrical components are. It shows a little symbol here for your fuses. They want you to lock this down tight to keep it sealed, keep it out of the elements and then obviously you've got more information in your owner's manual. So once we remove the top here you'll see there's a bunch of fuses and some relays. There's some empty areas here. All that means is that this truck doesn't have some options that maybe this fuse box may feed on other vehicles. For instance might be something like electric running boards this truck doesn't have so it doesn't have the spot for the fuse. So what we'll do is we'll just if you're looking in here you're not just looking at all the fuses. You're obviously going here to look for something specific. So let's say you hook up your trailer so your park lights aren't working. So one of the things you check obviously your connection and stuff that didn't work. Maybe you want to check your fuses to make sure your fuses are good. Because it's common for trailers old wiring and stuff in and out of water you know blowing fuses. So we're going to go ahead and if you look here you'll scroll through the list and it'll have a little kind of abbreviated description of the main thing that that fuse runs. So it may run more than one thing but this is the main thing on the circuit. So if you scroll through and you look each one's numbered and you see this is the case fuses which are the bigger heavier square ones. And we get down here to the mini fuses and you'll see where it says you'll see trailer park lamps. It tells me it's a 20 amp and it tells me it's in location number 15. So you go over here to the box and if you look they'll all be numbered and you'll see number 15 here. It sits like this. It's kind of how it's laid out and you look and then the fuses number 20 is right there. So I won't take this one out but if you want to apparently needing those pliers or something with the key off of course you won't want the circuit live when you're doing it just in case you ever cross anything out. You're going to pull it out and obviously this is a 10 amp but just to show you what it kind of looks like that's what you would see. So what you really want to do to ideally check the fuse is you want to put a test light across these two little metal terminals on each side of the 10. Power is coming in one side and going out the other. If the fuse is broke or blown in the middle obviously you won't have power on one side so you don't have to replace that fuse. So you can take them out and look at them if you're stuck and you don't have one. I've seen those fuses they don't necessarily just blow in the middle sometimes they'll blow on the sides and it's really hard to see. Some of them have a darker plastic on them so you can't really see through them you hold them to the light it's kind of hit or miss. Really putting it in is testing it with a test light thing to do. Or if you've got a spare fuse just put a spare fuse in it and try it and see if your circuit starts to work. One thing you want to do is you want to make sure whatever you take out you put back in so it's calls for 20 you put a 20 amp. If you don't have a 20 amp fuse you can go maybe step down so maybe go down to a 15 amp or a 10 amp. If you had to and you're kind of stuck and you don't have access to any fuses stores are closed or whatever. But you won't really want to put in the fuse that should be there. And if you do put the fuse in and it blows right away well then obviously you've got a dead short somewhere. So you don't want to just keep trying fuses because you're not you can still potentially ruin the circuit. This thing's only made really to pop once and then figure out what the problem is. So if that happens then obviously you'll have to bring it in and see what's going on with it. So the other type of fuse that you can have obviously I talked about there's those J or the K style fuses. They're a little harder to test obviously got this cover which does come off sometimes they break and crack as the plastic gets brittle. You can see there's a little circular piece in there that's what the that's the metal for the for the fuse to blow. The fuse is there to protect the circuit. So if you go ahead and put something in heavier than what this is you potentially next weakest thing in line. So whether it be the wire or the module or the component could burn up and then you could be into a real expensive repair or your harness could burn up. Obviously generating some heat there. If you're in something with a heavier circuit with a 30 or a 40 or even sometimes 50 60 amp fuses the bigger maxi fuses. You're going to get a generate a lot of heat and you can actually cause a fire. So you definitely want to make sure you put in the right one. There's these fuses here and there are three blade fuses instead of a two. Essentially it's just two fuses in one. You get your power coming one side which feeds to two separate components or two separate circuits. Like I say you're going to have the same style set up in the interior on the instrument cluster fuse box or in the trunk. Your same sort of legend thing. Sometimes they're not on here. Sometimes you'll just have numbers and some of them different makes and models. But they'll have this similar thing in a lot more detail in the owner's manual. The other type of fuse you can have in some circuits using a power window or power seat. Something in that nature that runs an electric motor is circuit breakers. Circuit breakers are basically a fuse that can reset themselves. Got a little bi-metallic strip in there as it generates heat. It lifts off and disconnects and when it cools back down again it touches them. The reason why that's there is because for instance in your windows in the middle of winter time they're froze up. You're trying to put your window down. It's kind of froze. You keep trying to push it to kind of break that ice free on your window. And you're putting a lot more amperage through the circuit and it can cause some heat. And if you just had a fuse in there obviously you'd be replacing fuses every time your window's stuck. So it just kind of gives you that little, you know, where you can try it a few times and it's protecting itself. But then you don't have to keep replacing the fuse every time. So circuit breakers are a different thing. You can't test them like this. You need an old meter to kind of check them to make sure they're working good. They don't usually go that often. I've seen a lot of cars from the 80s and 90s that come in here with the original circuit breakers still in them. So most cars will have, in one of the fuse pans, will have a fuse removal tool. It's usually a little white piece of plastic. It's usually on the cover for grabbing onto these and pulling them out. If you don't, a pair of needle nose just works fine. Sometimes your fingers, but they can't be tight in there. Another thing that you'll have on the cover too is sometimes they'll have a spot for three or four extra fuses. Or sometimes in the box they'll actually have the spares sitting in the fuse panel. And usually you can tell those are the spares. It'll say on the legend of course, but when you go to pull them out, they'll be really loose because they're not making any contact in there. You know, if you are using them, you should replace them because obviously you'll need them and you'll forget all about it. And next thing you know, you'll need a fuse someday for an emergency and you go to replace the fuse and it won't be there. So something else to think about when you're replacing your fuses. Other than that, that's pretty much all the information. When you're done with your fuse, if your circuit's working fine, obviously if you plug whatever you plugged in, let's say to your power outlet, it blew it again. Obviously that device has an issue or maybe it's drawing too much amperage for that circuit. So that's something for you to look at too. If you have any questions about that, you can bring that in to us and we can help you out to turn whether or not that whatever you're trying to plug in is maybe too much for that circuit. So that's been Tech Talk and kind of how to replace a fuse. Any questions, just drop them in the comments below. Any suggestions on some videos and some quick how-to's, let us know. 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