Two more photos of mystery objects (at least to me!) under the hood of my '67 Delta 88, but with some additional mysteries thrown in.


First, what is this that is connected to the voltage regulator (circled in yellow)? Diagrams I've seen of voltage regulators show four connectors, all on one side (as on the right side of it in this photo). This one has a 5th pin, on the top edge, and it looks like a condenser is connected to it and to ground. Is that what this is? What is it there for? Radio noise supression? If so, it gets its own connector on the regulator? Whatever it is, it looks to be in bad shape. Should I replace it? What am I asking for at the parts counter?







Second, what is this reddish-orange wire coming out of the wiring harness circled in yellow below? Now here's the weird, extra mystery. Yesterday I posted a photo of this, and it was connected, apparently, to the lead that powers the underhood light. I separated the connectors and checked for voltage on each of them. What this was connected to (a black wire coming by itself out of the firewall, not from the wiring harness) has 12 volts whenever the headlights are on or the key is on. I presume this is to power that underhood light. I connected this to the lead coming from the underhood light, and now I have light under the hood again. The connectors match up just fine.

So this side of the connection, which is this red-orange wire, has, of course, zero volts when the ignition is on. So what's it for? Apparently it needs to receive power for something.

One thing I did discover, though, is that my weirdness with the taillights going on whenever the ignition is on has been SOLVED by disconnecting this orange wire from that 12 volt source. (I've described this problem in a different thread.) So this wire is somehow connected to the taillights? What would it be doing under the hood, and where SHOULD it be connected? It looks clean and neat like it's always been there, and why would whoever connected it to the power source for the underhood light do that?





One additional tidbit of information that might shed light on my whole range of electrical weirdnesses is that I've come to realize that this car might once have been rigged to tow a trailer. There is no hitch on it, but all of the taillight wires in the trunk have been cut and respliced as though someone had cut into them to obtain power for taillights on the trailer. In fact, on one side there are these triangular-shaped connectors (see photo below). I think cutting into the taillight wiring was more common in those days when pre-configured trailer wiring harnesses weren't available on cars and trucks like they are now. Perhaps whoever did this weirdness with the taillights going on with the ignition rewired the car so that the lights on the trailer would go on whenever the ignition was on, perhaps for safety reasons, and he borrowed the power to do that from the underhood lamp. Seems kind of a weird thing to do (for instance, why not get the power from the under the trunk-lid lamp?).

 

Just about any time you see one of those condensers anywhere but under the distributor cap, its purpose is radio noise suppression.

The only orange wire that should be in that location is the transmission control switch power wire. Look on the kickdown switch just below it on the throttle linkage and see if there's an empty terminal on it. If your "passing gear" hasn't been working, this could well be the cause.

It is hot only with ignition in run and is powered from the "TRANS CONT" fuse. The UH and trunk lamps are wired thru the taillamp circuit so that they only come on if the running lamps are on. If the UH lamp power wire were connected to it, it would create a power backfeed from ignition switch to the main light switch taillamp terminal thru that wire and cause the taillights to light anytime the ignition was on.

Only the person who did it knows. I generally don't see near the wiring buggery on Oldsmobiles that I do on Chevrolet and Pontiac, but one should never underestimate a redneck "engineer" who is searching for a "hot wire".

 

Thank you! I will check for an unconnected terminal as you suggest. I have not tried passing anyone with this car since getting it, so I don't know if the kick-down is working.

Thanks again.

 

great job!

 

The orange wire and connector is located in the right place to be the 12V feed to the variable vane control switch as mentioned in the previous reply. Someone may have installed an after-market switch which was wired into the brake lights: when your foot was on the brake pedal, the switch would shut off the power to the kick-down switch and the stator solenoid would stay closed so the torque converter would not bog down your RPM's at the starting line. As soon as you took your foot off of the brake pedal, the after-market switch would restore the 12V feed to the kick-down switch, open up the stator solenoid and start the variable-vane action. The detent solenoid opens up at wide-open-throttle, giving you the extra ~20% torque and the "kick-down" action. This is only a guess. On my 67 Cutlass with the 330 H.O. engine, this orange wire has 12V on it when the engine is running, and zero volts when I shut it down. I hope this helps!

 

Starting line? So this is something you would do if you were going to drag-race the car? Would somebody have used this car as drag racer? A Delta 88? Or is this just something that might have been done to get quicker acceleration in everyday driving?