Help what are these for?

[ian4455]

Found these loose behind my speedo, what are they for?

Edited February 12, 2010 by ian4455

[fsrowsell]

Ian, I don't see a picture? OK I see it now...

Edited February 12, 2010 by fsrowsell

[andydclements]

The rectangular item is a voltage stabiliser, to give you the 10v for the dials. Standard replacement now is a solid-sate piece that gives true 10v whereas those ones work similarly to a flasher relay, they supply 12v for approx 5/6 of the time, so on average the dials get 10v (it's probably not 5/6 because I would assume it's worked on RMS and an alternator output of 13v or so, but you get what I mean). Because the dials are quite slow to react (hot b-metalic strip dials) you don't normally see the fluctuation, but if the unit fails, you dials may read inaccurately, or simply start to swing wildly with no apparent reason.

The cylinder, AFAIK is a capacitor to smooth out the supply voltage slightly , but I'm not certain on that.

Andy

[DaveyT]

Old thread, but perfect for my question.

I too have these kicking around behind the binnacle. The wiring diag indicates that the VS casing should be earthed.

Can anyone tell me if it is generally mounted to the chassis (and if so, where) or just attached to a (black) earth wire?

I just happen to have one of those with no apparent purpose coming from the same bit of loom binding, but it has a 10mm ring attached to the end of it.

thx in advance

[lotus-62]

the voltage stabiliser has a little hole,  on my cars this hole is used to mount it to the back of the speedo or rev counter (don't remember) .  seems to work....

 

 

[DaveyT]

Thanks Rick,

the rev counter is earthed back to the loom so I'll use that.

that just leaves me with the spare black wire coming from the loom with the ring connector, which looks like it's meant to go round a bolt, but whether to a chassis point or on the instruments is unclear.

[DaveyT]

Well this is where I've stuck that errant earth as there was nowhere else obvious to put it.( @PilotSteve fyi)

It does mean I have 2 earths to the revcounter, but I think it's all now in line with the wiring diagram, and everything seems to light up when it should.....

....except the ignition light 😡, but I still need to wire up the replacement alternator from SJ. If anyone has one of these, which terminal does the brown/yellow wire connect to please? 1 or 2?

Jamie did tell me on collection, but that was a while back....😗

[DaveyT]

Also just spotted the spade connector to the left of the starter cable, but none of the options alone gives me an ignition light when the signal wire is connected. The body of alternator is earthed to the engine.

should there be another wire going back to earth with this new alternator?

A call to SJ in the morning, I think...

 

[DaveyT]

For anyone's future reference, the signal wire goes to terminal 2. On the SJ replacement alternator

earth comes from the mounting points, so just the two wires connected.

looks like my ignition light failure emmanates from somwhere else. Oh joy.