My friend accidentally left the lights on on his girlfriend's 2000 Xterra one evening and drained the battery. In trying to jump it, my friend crossed the jumper cables (he's not a car guy, heh) and now it won't start. The car doesn't attempt to turn over and none of the accessories work (horn, windows, stereo, etc). I've done a bit of googling and looking and he seems to have blown his 100A battery fuse.

There's 2 bolts that hold the fuse in - we got one of them (the one on the driver's side of the box), but for some reason we can't separate the halves of the fuse box to get access to the second one (passenger's side).

This is what it looks like.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v139/Phoenix_2002/Car/82075068.gif

We've popped every clip around the perimeter of the fuse box, and I thought I got all the clips that would separate the two halves (4 inbetween the two halves and I think there's 2 on the driver's side half), but obviously I'm missing something since it feels like they're still clipped together in the center (it slides up a touch but then gets stuck again).

Can anyone describe in detail how to get access to that second bolt? It's driving me nuts that I can't figure it out.

Thanks.

Welcome to the club.

I'm sure someone with a 1st gen will answer your question shortly.

Welcome to the club.

I'm sure someone with a 1st gen will answer your question shortly.
Thanks. I was hoping to get an answer by tonight since I'm gonna head back over and see if we can figure it out again.

i will go out and look at mine when it stops raining... i will let you know if i can an a little while...

For my 00, it was just the clip on the exterior of the box. Mine too felt like it was still being held by something, but it was actually just one of the clips re-engaging and when I pulled harder that clip just snapped and viola I had my fusible link box open.

I'm pretty sure we got all the exterior clips (I can get my hands under it and feel the wires), maybe we're not fully disengaging the ones inbetween the halves. I thought we got all 4 of them, but that's where it feels like it's stuck.

Do you remember if you needed to get the two clip looking gaps in the middle of the driver's side half erodth?

These are the clips we pryed apart (or tried to), along with the ones on the outside of the box.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v139/Phoenix_2002/Car/car_pic01.jpg

Well, it turns out we were on the right track. We shoved 4 toothpicks into the little slots inbetween the two halves and yanked the crap out of it - eventually it gave. We put the new 100A fuse in and it fired right up.

Cheers.

glad to hear that yall got it running again.. LOL now show him the right way to jump start a car.. LOL

I'm glad people here could help.

Have fun!

Don't feel bad.. when I worked at Checker I put someone's battery in backwards because their cables were both black and I got mixed up (in my defense, it was 110°F in Phoenix) and blew one of those large fuses.

... which still isn't as bad as the time I broke someone's window changing the wiper blades. Man, I hated that job.

Oh, believe me, his GF and I will not let him live this down.

Black and black I could see, I'm pretty sure his were red and black. Ah well, another vehicle I've outwitted. ;-)