[T3] Clock Fuse

[Jim Adney]

For some time, I've been bothered by the fact that my car batteries run down 
if I don't drive the car for awhile. While a certain amount of self-discharge is 
normal in lead/acid batteries, my cars seem to run down faster than I think 
they should. Finally, I realized that the clock might have something to do with 
this, since they continue to run all the time.

The obvious solution, since the clocks don't keep good time anyway, would 
be to simply remove the clock fuse when the car's not going to be used for a 
long time. But, to my surprise, the clock is not listed as being served by ANY 
of the 12 fuses. A look thru various wiring diagrams confirmed that the clock 
IS NOT FUSED! Huh? Really?

Looking at wiring diagrams from '66 to '73, I can see that the clock power 
came via slightly different paths, but it never comes thru a fuse. this may 
explain why the female power connector to the back of the clock has a 
plastic insulator on it, but why do it this way? I've never had a problem where 
a fuse there would have saved something, but this seems odd and out of 
character. Shouldn't everything be fused? I note, however, that the ignition 
and starter circuits are not fused.

Now the early, thump-wound clocks, up thru '70 have an internal fuse, but I 
don't think there's anything comparable in the '71-3 clocks.

I'd like to reroute my clock power thru a fuse so I can easily disable the clock 
when the car is in storage. I put a trickle charger on that car, but I can see 
now that the trickle charger can barely keep up with the clock, so it would be 
better if the clock was not connected while in storage.

Any thoughts on this?

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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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