tperkins

I pulled the instrument cluster in my '66 to fix the speedo. There are 3 capacitors behind the cluster. In the picture below, #1 was connected to the battery gauge, #2 is the radio capacitor and #3, above the temp gauge was disconnected (with a tag on it saying "spliced"). In addition, there is another capacitor connected to both terminals of the brake light switch.

What are all these for and does it make a difference if #3 on the pic remains disconnected? If it should be connected, where does it go? The electrical diagrams do not show any capacitors.

Thanks so much!

gbvette62

Radio noise suppression.

66jack

Here ya go...

I just went through this with my car...

http://www.lbfun.com/warehouse/tech_...ess-Labled.jpg

tperkins

All of that just to eliminate radio noise (along with the shields over the spark plug wires). Imagine that. Since my radio sounded real good before I took this apart, I guess I can just leave that one capacitor disconnected.

Thanks for the quick responses.

62Jeff

It affects AM radio. For example, the one in the upper left that splices into the BRAKE lamp. Well, the BRAKE lamp is a flashing bulb, so if you are sitting in your car, parking brake on, listening to the AM radio - you'll hear a "click click click" as the BRAKE lamp blinks blinks blinks.

How often will that scenario happen?

The one under the OIL gauge plugs into a dark brown wire that is always hot. If you choose not to connect it, make sure the dark brown wire doesn't get accidentally connected to the ground tab above the Tach (which can happen).

JohnZ

No, they don't, because all of them are part of the radio option - a base (no radio) car doesn't get any of them. All of them are shown in detail in the U69 (radio) section of your Assembly Manual.

Frankie the Fink

As Jeff said AM (Amplitude Modulation) radio was horribly susceptible to interference and static whereas FM (Frequency Modulation) radio is less so. But AM is all they had back then and capacitors were cheap but have a limited life span.

Your originals are probably long since shot to hell. So you can leave them in or take them off - no difference.