57 Chevy Truck Fuse Box

I cannot, for the life of me, find the fuse box in my 57 Chevy truck that I just bought. Can anybody tell me where it is or if the truck even has one. I can't imagine it wouldn't have one!

 

It probably never had one. They didn't use fuse blocks on trucks back in those days. The various loads were distributed either off the ignition switch, or the ammeter. I don't have a wiring diagram for a '57 but in '55 there was no fuse box. They did have an optional "distribution block" that was mounted under the dash but it was an option and most of the older trucks don't have that either.

 

Only fuse in the truck would be in the light switch, little short one for the instrument light...maybe dome light too.

 

my 56 has a little fuse panel, only anout 3" x 2 1/2" at the d/s top inside corner of the dash....way up at the top...dunno if it was an add on but it looks factory...it only had either 4 or 6 fuses....not sure as I took it out and its packed away in a box in the shed somewhere

 

Fuse panels were optional equipment in '55-'57. I think they became standard in '58. You can buy a stock type repop panel from LMC and the like for around $30. It's on my list of things to do.

It's really a good idea to add one of these if you don't have one. I crunched a brake wire and totally fried my repop headlight switch. It disintegrated the circuit breaker arm and left the fuse unblown. Not safe by any stretch of the imagination. Came real close to letting the smoke out of the wires. Not good!

 

Let me know if you want to get rid of that! I'd much rather have factory than repop!

 

Oh man I just traded some schtuff and an original fuse panel was one of the things I traded away! I did see today there is a complete wiring harness for a '57 on ebay that has the fuse panel too. It looks better than the one I had. I made my own fuse panel and wiring harness. Fuse panel will be redone in the near future to include some other things, but you should have one of some sort or another. If you're not too concerned about originality, there's panels (other than the high dollar Painless types) that come with the newer style fuses and number of fuses.

 

I bought a repop for about 20 or so.. Seems to work OK....

 

You can use a tri 5 and most folks wont know the difference.