Previous owner mentioned to me that he had to redo the wire going to the battery positive as it melted when the hood hinge broke and severed (I think the negative). He has no idea what it is, neither do I hah... Everything seems to work, but would love to know.

 

Horn relay.

 

What year & model is this car? From a very fast review without much detail it appears to be a horn relay/junction box.

 

If the vehicle is a 1967 Olds Cutlass (reviewing your previous threads/posts), this is what a 1967 Olds Cutlass horn relay/junction box looks like.

 

Ahhh, yes it is a 67 Cutlass! I'll have to try the horn lol. I'm glad it wasn't something super critical.

 

Did you test the horn?

 

It is both the horn relay AND the primary junction block for power to the rest of the car, so year, it's "super critical". If you are asking fundamental questions like this, you REALLY need to get a factory Chassis Service Manual before burning the car to the ground.

 

I'll agree w/ Joe and I was about to point out some real issues in the wiring. You need to revisit the wiring diagram for this car. The junction block/box supplies POWER to electrical circuits and it does so via the battery terminal POSITIVE (RED) wire. I don't own a 1967 Cutlass, but in general the POSITIVE battery terminal is located towards the rear of the vehicle; and, it is RED for POSITIVE. Why is this car's POSITIVE battery terminal BLACK? You need to examine the wiring diagram in the CSM and you need to properly label the wires. Something is amiss in your wiring scheme - you need to correct this.

 

They used an aftermarket black cable on the positive side. The electrons are color blind. And they used a battery with the terminals on the wrong sides. I'd be lying if I said I'd never done that before.

 

Well, I thought the EXACT same thing - and, it does not make it correct; it confuses anyone working on the wiring on this vehicle. At the VERY LEAST, the wires need to be properly labeled with some RED tape. Most of us have been there, but this leads more to confusion than helps to address the situation; especially when one doesn't know what the horn relay/junction block is.

 

If someone gets really confused because of a black pos battery cable, they really should not be doing car electrical.

 

In a way I said "glad it isn't something super critical" because I wanted someone to chime in just in case, which you guys did- thank you LOL.

For sure I don't want to burn the car to the ground, I do have the Service and Fisher Body manuals for 1967. It does have some wiring diagrams but nothing that seemed obvious to me. I'll admit I'm a tech/IT guy primarily (see my site shameful plug)... Is the Chassis Service Manual something different from what I already have?

I agree, if someone gets confused about a black positive battery cable, I sure hope they aren't working on my electrical ( I guess I have to include myself there). I just assumed that was the positive by the fact that it was connected to the battery +, I was thinking huh I guess they didn't feel the need to differentiate the cables back in 67.

 

This is the Chassis Service Manual. Chapter 12 is Electrical. Notice the diagram of the horn relay and junction block in Figure 12-32.

 

On a lot of commercial trucks all of the wiring is white except for the batt pos and neg cables. This leads to a lot of confusion. Sure there are some barely legible circuit numbers printed on them but they are usually wiped off in the area you are working in.

 

Back when I worked on aircraft avionics 99% of all wires were white with source/destination codes on them.

 

MIL-SPEC wiring typically only comes in one color. The printed circuit designators replace the color codes. Not exactly relevant where someone has replaced color-coded car wiring with monochrome and didn't use those designators.

 

All that said, without being able to go look at the car at this moment, I'm thinking then, the only thing that would be damaged could be the horn relay? (Famous last words)... Since it looks like it was the positive lead he replaced on that.

 

Evidently you don't know the answer to the question I asked in Post #7. You've found out the answer to your original question in Post #1. Outside of that, it appears there's no issue to resolve at this point other than if you (I suggest) elect to properly color code your wires. Look, there's no reason to speculate on what is or is not working on the vehicle unless you can validate you have an issue - all else is speculation. Come back around when you know you have a known issue and we'll help you address issue(s). Yes, it looks like the (+) cable was replaced. I suggest once you have both the vehicle and the wiring diagram in place, you validate your wiring - it will provide a significant amount of confidence in your abilities to troubleshoot any electrical gremlins in this car. We're sitting here as side-arm bandits shooting at bottles & cans. Not one of us can state any previous electrical work on this car - stereo(s), alarm(s), amplifier(s), new wiper motor(s), ground (-) wire(s), etc. - wait until you have a definite issue.

 

Correct, I don't know if the horn works, when I bought the car, I tried it but it has an aftermarket steering wheel and who knows what was hooked up there. Car is currently under wraps and its -24C where I am in an unheated garage. It'll be something to test.
I didn't mean for that to be a "could there be anything else wrong with my wiring" hah.. I hear ya though, no way to tell till I test it all out.
In looking up more on this issue here, I'm certainly learning a lot of interesting stuff. I appreciate the help!

 

No worries. Don't try/attempt to overthink these things too much until you have something which requires some form of action. There are many folks here (as you know) to assist you and everyone is eager to provide you with solid information. (-24°C × 9/5) + 32 = -11.2°F is the reason I reside in the South since retirement. Pretty much had my share of frozen extremities growing up in the Great White North.

 

BTW - Did you standup/create the outrightolds website? It's a fine website. Are you a developer, programmer, network/admin?

 

I can never remember the math on that temp calculation, and my brain still sticks to Celsius even after 10+ years in the US. Sometimes I do wish I had gone further south than Minnesota when I moved here 😅 Where are you from then?

Thank you on the website! I've created and collected the content since 2004, designed some graphics, know quite a bit on the so called back end. The whole thing in is current state is a template (customized) and based/runs on Joomla, which is a content management system, which in turn runs on a web server. Purely a hobby of interest and not a money making thing. I try to keep the ads mostly off as it really doesn't cost much to run but time.

 

My roots are Northern Illinois (born Chicago, raised in suburbs) w/ very large extended family throughout all of Wisconsin (primarily) & Minnesota. Quite familiar w/ Joomla!/PHP & object-oriented programming (in general). Trained on FORTRAN IV, COBOL, BASIC, ASCII, PASCAL. After a career in molecular genetics/immunology/biochemistry I jumped ship & implemented global IT network infrastructure monitoring/management systems for MS. I've far more familiarity with CMS & back-ends than front-ends.

 

I just checked out the OutrightOlds site, very nice job. A lot of things I haven;t seen before.

Steve

 

Unfortunately a quick scan shows some factual errors.

The Cutlass model line was introduced in April 1961. Trimwise it was identical to the F85 Deluxe. The primary differences were an upgrade of the base engine from the 155 hp 2bbl to the 185 hp 4bbl (the latter was optional in all other F85s that year) and standard bucket seats.
There was never a true hardtop Cutlass for the 1961-63 model years. Buick did offer a hardtop Skylark, but only the Jetfire was available as a hardtop (and that was the only factory body style offered as a Jetfire). All other Cutlii in those years were post coupes.

 

I'll take any feedback on that type of thing. What I do try to do is validate info from multiple 'trusted' / decent places. Where I do find conflicting info, I try to mention it and let the reader decide or research on their own further. I also try to verify and validate through Oldsmobiles own product brochures (and books that I have on hand).

Some of what is on my site is no longer posted online, as websites disappear, so I'm glad to both centralize storage of the info and provide a stable place to house documents/info.. and keep it all free too! Sometimes you don't want to have to go to Facebook to find info or look at pictures right? Haha.

Generally I also try to strip out anyone's personal opinions, like 'such and such' engine was the best engine ever made by Oldsmobile (where I notice it hah).

 

Well, consider anything that is not direct factory literature to be suspect, and even the factory literature sometimes has errors. Be especially suspicious of sites that quote the Olds FAQ word-for-word. I was there then that FAQ was compiled and I know the errors that process generated.

 

A few more items, The Vista Cruisers in 1964-67 used a 120" wheelbase. For 68-72 they grew to 121". Flattop wagons used the same wheelbase as four door sedans. The Rallye 350 was never built with the 325 HP W31 motor. It only came with the 310 HP L74 motor used in the rest of the Cutlass line. In 1964 the Police Apprehender packages were B01 City Cruiser and B07 Highway Patrol options. The primary difference was the addition of the rear anti-sway bar on the B07 cars. The 1964 442 got the B09 RPO code all to itself, which included the B07 Highway Patrol package and the special 310 HP engine.

 

Thanks Joe, I really appreciate the corrections and extra info! I've made related mods to that page based on what you have written here. I can't believe I had the Rallye 350 engine totally wrong hah... wow. I do know that oldsfaq / have heard it has many errors. Back when we lost 442.com I did copy it and started to slightly update it visually on a domain I bought for it (theoldsfaq.com) just to be sure it was kept somewhere. I see some others have done the same too so I kinda lost interest in keeping up with it- though I will maintain its place in case the others disappear.