Wooden Fuses

Recently, I stopped by a junkyard with a friend to look for parts for his Mercedes restoration project car. One car in particular was memorable - heavy steel chain wrapped around the steering wheel and cables holding the rear doors closed against each other. But that pales in comparison to what we found in the electrical fuse panel.

From left to right we have:

1. Normal red fuse
2. Normal blue fuse
3. Blue fuse soldered shut
4. Normal pink fuse
5. Bypassed white fuse
6. Bypassed blue fuse
7. Bypassed, corroded, red fuse
8. Misbypassed red fuse
9. Wooden fuse. This one was tight.
10. Wooden fuse of different length. This one was loose.

Not one, but two wooden fuses! I could understand perhaps stealing a little wire from a speaker and whittling a fuse body once and replacin it as soon as I got home, but there are two wooden fuses! And, someone soldered one of the fuses shut after it blew. We didn't end up taking any parts from this car.