[horn]

I have an 53 yr old breaker box that has 4-220 breakers than a space and a 60 amp breaker that powers the rest of the box. My question is how to wire up the 60 amp breaker, does it matter which wire from power bar goes to top and which goes to bottom. I had an electrician come out and he took it apart and never came back. The box dosnt have a disconnect in it so I cut power at meter head.

 

[rjniles]

You have a split bus pane. Here is some info:
http://www.buellinspections.com/split-bus-electrical-panels-no-main-breaker/

 

[Know A Little]

While no body likes to spend money, you should consider replacing the panel or at a minimum if the back box and guts like decent all the circuit breakers.

CB's do go bad, and 53 year is IMO long past their useful life.

 

[Run and find ou]

There are some brands of panel from that era which many pros recommend replacing on sight.

OP has gotten their money's worth out of it, but the one study that's ever been done on aged residential breakers found that out of hundreds of 40- and 50-year-old breakers all of them tested OK except for some from outdoor panels.

 

[Know A Little]

The average life of a circuit breaker is in the 30-40 year range, when you consider most residential circuit breakers are the bottom of the rung distribution equipment (residential low bid) and in many cases are in panels in less than friendly environments, basements, outdoors, I would err on the side of safety.

We test circuit breakers and commercial grade thermal magnetic circuit breakers of that age have approximately a 1-5% failure rate.

What to bet your families well being on a 1-5% odds? Just my personal take on old distribution equipment.