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MG MGB Technical - mystery item?

What is the small silver coloured cylinder with a black wire coming out of it directly behind the speedo on a british 72 gt. Mine is not attached to anythin and it does not seem to do anything either!
Iwan Jones

think it should be a light for your high beems or dial light
tg
tony giordano

Hi,

Thanks for your comment.

No, I actually don't think it has anything to do with those. Not connected to anything at the moment, all dash lights and all other lights are working fine.

What is it???? Anyone??

Iwan Jones

"all dash lights and all other lights are working fine."

Must be a disconnected lucas smoke reservoir!
.

Ha,

Believe it or not. This project car of mine has stood outside for eight or nine years in horrendous Welsh weather (only those who have been to wales in Winter can really appreciate). The Lucas bits have all revived with a bit of pulling apart connectors and cleaning up and light sanding.

Funny that the only time I had a problem with electrics was with an aftermarket washer pump in my other GT. Was merrily driving along - washer pump not in use all of a sudden smoke pouring in from under the dash. By the time I got to a place where I could stop safely and switch off, the wires to the pump were copper strands with bits of molten plastic dangling from them.

Re-attached the old mechanical pump pronto.

Got hold of a fire extinguisher

Phew!
Iwan Jones

It's not the remants of the small odometer reset cable, the one you set yourself to measure mileage on short trips?
If you don't have one of these on the gauge, you might have the earlier speedo with the later case.
Peter

Can you post a picture and provide a link?
Kimberly

What is your fuel gauge and Temp gauge doing? Working properly? Could that be the voltage stablizer? Perhaps the PO went to another style and left the old one behind the dash.

Cheers,
Dennis
dennis

I was going to guess the flasher unit, since I assume it would be behind there on your car (on the passenger's side in LHD cars) but you said your blinkers were working, right?

Dan D
Dan DiBiase

A capacitor for reducing radio interference?
Steve Postins

If the silver bit bolts to something that is grounded, and the wire is black as you say, it is almost certainly an interference suppressor as Steve says. Often these are blue and connected to things that create electrical noise like voltage stabiliser, alternator, etc. Can't think what by the speedo it would beconencted to, unless your stabiliser is there, on my 73 and 75 (RHD) they are low down on the firewall and to the right of the column.
Paul Hunt 2

Sorry not to reply earlier, been away from a computer for a while.

The flasher unit is a small rectangular unit placed on the firewall. This thing is bolted to the narrow square tube crossbar/support close to where the steering rack bolts on to it.

Temp gauge working fine (fuel gauge not connected up just yet). Have no radio in the car at the mo. so this could be a reason why its not attached to anything.

How do you post up pictures to this web site?

Ta for all your ideas
Iwan Jones

You can't post pictures here, like you can't send attachments. For pictures you have to put them on another website (does your ISP allow you to have a home page?) then post a link here. Nothing electrical attached to the cross brace that I have ever heard of, if it only has one wire it must be a suppressor capacitor. If you have an analogue test-meter with an ohms scale you can connect the probes to the device (wire and can) one way, then conenct them the other, and if you get a blip on the needle each time you connect them the other way round then it is a capacitor. Could have originally been connected to the green wire on the voltage stabiliser, or the flasher unit, both generate electrical noise.
Paul Hunt 2

This thread was discussed between 16/09/2006 and 30/09/2006

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