cut it out and take it to the local radio shack. . .my vacuum took a dump not long after I got it and they had the exact fusable link I needed for around 25 cents.

 

I took it out last night, today I visited Radio Shack, and three electical / electronics places no one could help me. Tomorrow I am going to a huge electronic supply place and if they don't have it I am going to use a piece of solder as the fuseable link.[:@]I wish I knew how to figure out what rating to use, I would replace it with a self resetting breaker. The outside of the vac says 11.5 amp draw and peak 5.5 HP. I should have payed attention in high school electronics class.

 

15 amp fuse should do. You want about 15-20% over what the circuit normally draws.

 

Geek hat on...
1HP is 746 Watts
5.5HP would be 4103Watts
4103W/115V= 35.68A

As you can see the 5.5HP is a bull**** rating, much like many air compressors.

However the instantaneouscurrent when first applying power may reach something like that because of the inductive load of the motor, However I doubt you would measure this with any meter you have handy in your garage.

A fusible link is basically a resistor thet is meant to burn in two when the heat reaches a certain point. this heat is created by the current through the resistor.

A piece of wire can act a fusible link, because at some certain point the amount of current through the wire will burn it in half (obviously you would want this to be a known value to be able to protect something).

Lacking the ability to find a marking on the thing anywhere, you might be able to call shop-vac on the phone...OR if bound and determined to do it all yourself which is probably what I would do, stick a 15A slo-blow fuse in it and go to town, if it blows that, then I would be inclined to do a little more investigating as to why it is blowin the thing out.

 

I seem to remeber that back in the old days that they used wire for fusible links. The rule of thumb was that the wire for the fusible links be 2 sizes smaller than the wire in the circuits.