89 F250: #9 fuse holder meltdown

[GREASE FIRE]

i just bought the 89 f250 7.3 i was asking about before - after some tests it apears to be in good shape but the cab electrical needs a lot of work.
i noticed in the fuse panel that the #9 fuse is gone and the holder where it was has melted plastic around it. I have not put a meter on it yet to see if there is any power (just got truck yesterday) but i noticed that the heater/defroster fan does not work, and that on the fuse panel it says the #9 is for "heater - a/c" but i don't know if that means the heater fan or something else. It was supposed to have a 30 amp fuse.

does anyone have suggestions that might help me get this fixed? I can't really drive it much til i get the fan working because i will need the defroster. I did try to put a new fuse in there and the fan still did not work, but i am not sure if it will even hold a fuse correctly since it is all messed up.

thanks,
Paul

 

[towcat]

Yup. just looked.
heater/AC. 30 amp
obviously you had previous issues there. Chances are the resistor coils or the heater fan caused the meltdown. Usually the truck burns down completely. you're lucky
if you really have to drive the truck in the meantime, wire the fan directly to the battery and drive it(as long as the fan is in good shape). you're going to have some wiring work to do.

 

[GREASE FIRE]

so is that just for the fan or would the a/c unit also depend on this fuse panel issue getting fixed?

thanks,
paul

 

[Andylad13]

just the fan.

 

[GREASE FIRE]

where is the resistor/where to get a new one?

i looked into the problem and found some strange wiring near the fan and there is also some kind of round wiring connector mounted on the fan that does not have anything plugged into it. Perhaps that was where the resistor was? the fan does work fine though, and even the three-speed switch in the cab seemed alright but that is just a guess. So for now i will just control it with an on-off toggle switch but i would like to get the variable speed working so maybe i just need to get a new resistor somewhere and wire it up.
where in the truck should that resistor be and does anyone know where to get another one (aside from a dealership)? My guess is that the original one is what caused the fuse holder to melt down since it was not the fan and most likely not the switch.
thanks,
paul