1991 240SX: Shift Lock Fuse

[sethulrich]

My car is a 1991 240SX, that I have turbocharged...I hope I don't need to go into much detail describing everything I did there, as that would be quite an extensive list...I think my question is general enough that my turbo mods won't come into play.

What is the shift lock fuse for on an s13 equipped with a manual transmission? I am the third owner, and as far as I know, the car has always been a manual.The reason I ask is because I was driving home a few weeks ago, and my car quit on me. Nothing dramatic, I just pushed in the clutch, to coast down, and it died. No weird noises or anything.

Then I was unable to start it...it acted like the battery was dead. The starter would click, but that is all. Then I totally lost power, the dome lights went dead and everything. I checked the fuses, and the shift lock fuse was blown. I assume this fuse blew at the point where I lost power.

I replaced it, and that gave me power again, but the car still didn't wanna start. Somebody stopped to help, and I was able to push start the car. Drove it home, no problem. Shut it off, and it wouldn't start again.

Next day I went out, started the car. The starter made a grinding noise, but the car started ok. Well, I parked it again, and pulled the starter. The starter gear housing that goes into the bell housing is broken, and there is a lot of shaft play in the starter, so I'm replacing the starter. I must have gotten careless when I changed the clutch, and broken that housing when I was putting the transmission back in.

So, I still don't understand a couple things.

1) What is the purpose of a shift lock fuse when the car has a manual transmission? I thought shift lock was something on the automatic cars.

2) What would make this fuse blow? Is it possible the broken starter was in a bind, and the strain of trying to start it blew this fuse?

3) could the bad starter have caused the car to die, and not start again? I could understand it causing a problem if it got in a bind, but I think that would have made some horrible noises....but there weren't any.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!