Navyman53

1953 Oldsmobile Super 88 but engine is a 1955 324. Where do these wires go. Cant find anything that resembles them in the shop manual so I just have no clue. Any help is appreciated. Thanks
Jesse

The long wire that looks like some sort of ground.

The black ground looking wire wrapped together with the ignition wire from the switch.

Olds64

The first pic is your generator, correct? Although it may not have been done from the factory, there should be a ground wire from the negative post of your battery to the case of the generator. Make sure the generator case is burnished and use a star washer between the wire terminal and the generator case.

I'm wondering what's on the other side of those wires in the 2nd pic. It could simply be a grounding strap for the coil bracket.

Navyman53

Thanks for the help. I'll have to follow the wire as there were no battery cables with the car when I bought it.

Tedd Thompson

The white thing in the second picture is a ballast resister, I think. The wires coming off of it that are not attached to anything should go to the coil, the other one should go to the ignition switch , If I am remembering correctly. There should be someone here that does this for a living that would know for sure....Tedd

Vintage Chief

Agree w/ Tedd. That is a ballast resistor. I don't know the exact/correct application on your car, none-the-less that is a ballast resistor & I've had occasions to work on old vehicles/appliances/devices which used some type of ballast resistor. Do I know how it's supposed to be wired? No. Wait for someone who does know is my suggestion. In the meantime, here is a basic diagram of a ballast resistor used in an old jalopy perhaps as a talking point. I stole this from here:

https://www.apogeeweb.net/electron/w...-used-for.html

DFitz

I have a very original '55. I went down and took a couple of pics. The wires are all original and the colors are correct.


The generator, Brown wire goes to the middle terminal of the voltage regulator. The green wire, I'm not sure where that comes out, but appears to also be on the voltage regulator, last pic. There is a noise suppressor with shares the connection with the brown wire on the generator.


This is the ballast resistor. The black wire on the far side goes to the coil. The yellow one disappears into a wire bundle. Sorry.


The orange wire comes off the coil to the distributor.


Brown wire on the voltage regulator, might be the other green wire from the generator. Might be the yellow wire to the ballast resistor.

It's night here. Let me know if you need better pics, I can move it outside in the daylight and take off the air cleaner.

DFitz

One more.