On my 66, on the backside of the instrument cluster, near the battery meter, is a capicitor attached there. It's wire is not connected to anything. It has a brass or copper strip fastened on it to connect to something. Where does it go? Thanks.

 

On my '61, the capacitor connects between ground on the cluster, and the *out* side of the ammeter. I believe it serves as an electrical surge tank to make your ammeter needle not waver due to tiny current spikes.

Doug

 

Lynn,
That strip goes up against the prong coming out of the voltage guage that the black wire with white stripe on the connector goes to. You slide the connector on and it captures both the prong and the strip in it. It's for the radio to help knock out the alternator noise.

Geek

 

Geek is correct. And there are several capacitors on a midyear.

 

Here's an interesting experience I had a couple of years ago involving that capacitor on my 61. My wife and I were heading south on the freeway for a weekend getaway. It was dark and we were running along about 60 when all of a sudden the lights and engine died momentarily and smoke started billowing out from under the dash. I pulled a quick panic stop on the shoulder and bailed out to get fire extinguisher and flashlight out of the trunk. Got the extinguisher and was expecting to find a blaze under the dash but when I got there with the fire extinguisher I could not see any fire. With both doors open the smoke cleared and I got out the flashlight to see if I could see what happened. Amazingly I could not find any fried wires or anything else that looked like it had been hot. There was however a place on the carpet where something molten had dripped down?? Looked some more and still couldn't find anything wrong. I cautiously turned the ignition on and still no smoke. Engine started right up all lights and instruments normal??? I crawled under dash again but could still not see what had happened. We got back in and drove another hundred miles to where we were staying without incident. In the morning I again looked but could still not solve the mystery. We drove around all weekend and home again still with no further problems. A few weeks later I decided to really dig into it to find out what had happened. When I brushed the capacitor I noticed that the wire pulled out of one end. Mystery solved! It had apparently developed an internal short and the heat melted the wax which was what dripped down on the carpet and caused all of the smoke. Fortunately it didn't start a fire but sure did put out a huge cloud of smoke. I could not really detect any more radio noise without the capacitor so I just left it off. So unless you are going for NCRS judging, I'd leave it off. Another good reason for a power supply fuse, circuit breaker, or fusible link. Could have been much worse.

 

K2 that must have stunk to high heaven!! Those old caps when they go really give off the technician's perfume. I agree with you on connecting the cap. They are in the right theoretical places but truth is that the one on the voltage regulator will get most of the noise from the alternator that the radio is going to see in the power supply.

Happy New Year

Geek