Any idea what these are?

[Stog]

Two of them bolted to a bracket on the radiator.

[wooly350i]

Dunno,some kind of connector block perhaps? Has the car had some kind of major wiring operation with all those blue crimp connectors?

[nwarner]

They're ballast resistors.

[Stog]

The wiring in this cat was installed by a madman. It's an absolute mess and needs to be redone from scratch. The thing is at the moment I'm chasing a gremlin. My headlights will only turn on when I switch to main beams. In Steve heaths book he reckons this could be diodes acting up but I can't find any diodes under the hood at all.

[maston]

The diodes should be on the fuse/relay board in the passenger seat glove box.

[phillpot]

nwarner said:

They're ballast resistors.

Indeed they are, on the later S Series cars two were used in series to "dim" the instrument lights, giving the driver the option of dim, dimmer or off

[mrzigazaga]

Thats where mine are fitted also..Now i know what they are... Cheers..

[Stog]

Thanks Nigel.

[Stog]

My relay box if you'd call it that is under the bonnet and looks like this.

[JVaughan]

That looks bad even by TVR standards ....

[Wedg1e]

JVaughan said:

That looks bad even by TVR standards ....

That's just the standard fuse/relay panel from an early car with all-black wiring. A couple of the relays look to have been replaced - the ones with blue crimp terminals on them - and the remainder have come away from their mounting screws but that's about 90% original

[Stog]

Wedg1e said:

That's just the standard fuse/relay panel from an early car with all-black wiring. A couple of the relays look to have been replaced - the ones with blue crimp terminals on them - and the remainder have come away from their mounting screws but that's about 90% original

As much as I like to keep the car original, this is where I draw the line

[Wedg1e]

Stog said:

As much as I like to keep the car original, this is where I draw the line

A full rewire will be time-consuming but entirely feasible, it's patching up old electrics that is more hassle.

[Stog]

I agree, the electrics aren't too complicated. I'll be forever chasing gremlins if I don't re wire the whole car.

[Stog]

In the meantime diode wise what am I looking for. I started searching for a relay with a diode symbol on top but there's none.

[V8 Fettler]

Stog said:

My relay box if you'd call it that is under the bonnet and looks like this.

Mmmmmm, black cables! Invest in some cable markers.

[RCK974X]

As referred above, those ceramic block things are actually high current resistors, made by Lucas originally. I think they are about 3 ohms.

They were fitted in Triumph saloons as resistors for the 6 volt coils, and the one in my TVR is for the low speed on the two speed heater. They also appeared as headlight dimmers, dash light dimmers etc. and that sort of thing.

You have two, so it could be they are for two different things, or could be in parallel - can't see from photo. (two in parallel effectively halve the total resistance, so lessen the voltage drop)

On my 'all black', there is only one diode, and it's between the 'dip' and 'lift' relays on that board, and hard to spot as it's attached to relay bases.

Do headlights come on for dip but not lift ? if so, that's what would happen if diode is faulty. If lights don't come on, even with pods not lifted, then it's something else...

Edited by RCK974X on Monday 21st October 19:51

Edited by RCK974X on Monday 21st October 19:53

[Stog]

The lights pop up fine but don't come on in dip. Could it be switch on the stalk maybe? The indicators were acting a little vague a well or so ago but then started behaving again. I tried taking off the steering wheel to have a look but I don't have a socket big enough for the nut holding it on.

[Stog]

And to top it off my multimeter has disappeared, that's the third one. I'm sure it ran off with half my socks.

[RCK974X]

OK - well, it's a bit of a guess looking at that rat's nest, but here goes...

The original wiring (assuming mine is close to original) has a 'dip' and a 'main' wire from the stalk switch, which each go to a relay to actually switch the headlight filaments on. The 'lift' relay gets its signal from those two relays, one via a diode so both relays don't go on together.

From what you describe, sound like the DIP relay isn't working, because if the pods lift, then the DIP signal is getting as far as the 'lift' relay. Working out which is the DIP relay in there might be a challenge !


Does that make sense ? I tried to go logically !