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So, have a '70 Cutlass in the shop for a Vintage Air install. I am cleaning up some ot the under hood wiring mess and came across a three wire thing screwed to the left fender well.
It has three tiny wires with the insulation falling off. It is going in the junk pile but, anyone know what the heck it is? Three wires-some kind of relay maybe.
One wire not attached to anything, one scotch locked to another wire and the third I have not traced yet.
This car has some seriously jiggy wiring.
My money says an aftermarket horn relay, prob to get the car to pass safety inspection. Might also be for aftermarket fog or driving lights. It ain't factory, whatever it was for.
You need a clear, color copy of the 70 wiring diagram as found in the 1970 CSM.
I have always said Oldsmobiles generally don't get subjected to the wiring indignities Chevrolets, Pontiacs and Fords do, but when they do good god what a mess.
'Cause apparently it was too hard to find a correct one that just plugged in...
Is this junction block/horn relay still in place anywhere on the car? If not you've got to figure out how the battery cable was run to the starter and then how the accessory and main harness was powered. I think that might be important on a Vintage Air installation.
Sounds to me like someone was trying to turn this poor Cutlass into a Chevelle!😄
To quote young William Shakespeare in "Bill", "OH, BUGGER!" I do despise straightening out someone else's cobbled-up electrical mess "I gotta find me a hot wire!".
Last edited by rocketraider; Jun 18, 2021 at 08:32 AM.
Still has original horn relay/junction block. One of the wires was attached to the B+ stud on the horn relay, one scotchlocked onto the green wire (horns) and the other must have been attached to ground at some point. So, it is looking like it is an aftermarket relay. I have never seen one like that in my many year of car repair.
I will see if the horns work and either replace the OE horn relay or, wire in a ISO relay.
Is this junction block/horn relay still in place anywhere on the car? If not you've got to figure out how the battery cable was run to the starter and then how the accessory and main harness was powered. I think that might be important on a Vintage Air installation.
Sounds to me like someone was trying to turn this poor Cutlass into a Chevelle!😄
To quote young William Shakespeare in "Bill", "OH, BUGGER!" I do despise straightening out someone else's cobbled-up electrical mess "I gotta find me a hot wire!".
Got it handled. See my latest reply. Yeah, kind of important. Was a mess. I replaced the main starter/battery cable and made a new power supply wire from the battery to the j/b out of 8ga with a fusible link.
Still has original horn relay/junction block. One of the wires was attached to the B+ stud on the horn relay, one scotchlocked onto the green wire (horns) and the other must have been attached to ground at some point. So, it is looking like it is an aftermarket relay. I have never seen one like that in my many year of car repair.
I will see if the horns work and either replace the OE horn relay or, wire in a ISO relay.
Yup, looks like they used it to replace a failed OEM horn relay. The melted house wiring is a nice touch...
OK folks. I have solved the mystery. Not too difficult once I was informed the thing was a relay. Like I said, I have never seen a relay that looked like that. I figured it might be some thing sold by J C Whitney way back in the before times. Maybe it was. The bottom line is that is was a half-a**ed fix for a simple problem.I hate bad wiring with a passion. This was not the only suprise. Take a gander at what I found when dissassembling the interior. The underhood photo is another wiring nightmare found on a 1973 Mach ! Mustang. The original problem was diagnosing why the gauges did not work.
Yeah, that looks like the wiring in the squarebody crewcab dually I'm working on right now. Those f'n Scotchlok connectors should be illegal. And the beauty is when someone goes through great pains to route the new wire through every single bracket and obstacle so that you can't, for example, remove the brake pedal bracket without first completely removing all that half-fast wiring.
