Tonight I parked the Ute outside the house and took a moment to listen in to a Ham radio conversation that was going on. After maybe 2 minutes the radio cut out and I noticed that all electrical power was gone. Nothing at all was lighting up and engine totally unresponsive.
I checked the fuse bay and connections thinking that the new battery I fitted a couple of weeks ago might not have been securely mounted but all OK and nothing appeared out of the ordinary. I was about to go inside to get a multimeter to start checking fuses when the radio came back to life and the ute appears normal (albeit the radio had lost its programming). No more than 6 or 7 minutes from cutting out and apart from some prodding no real action from me.
Not a particularly hot day and nothing unusual going on except for listening to the amateur radio which is wired direct to the battery (via a fuse of course). It's only drawing about 1A on receive and 5A on transmit and the battery wasn't flattened at all so I can't figure out what happened. The inline fuse on the radio (10A) was untouched.
Is there some type of temperature sensitive re-settable fuse on the battery connection?