What is this part?

[DaddysTruck]

I'm rebuilding my engine wire harness and ran into a snag. The part in the picture was barely connected and fell off. It was located around where the coil plug is. There isn't enough wire sticking out to reconnect it with. I dont know what it is, so I'm not sure if I can cut into this thing to wire it back up, or if I can replace it.

 

[RonD]

Could be a "ballast resistor", although I haven't seen one coated/covered that way before.

It reduces the coil voltage when engine is running, 12volt coils last longer when running on 8volts, and no, lower voltage doesn't effect the spark on a running engine.

 

[kimcrwbr1]

Is the ignition coil round? For a stock TFI coil a ballast resistor is not necessary. That is a resistor symbol maybe someone added it aftermarket with a points type coil?

 

[adsm08]

That is a factory ballast resistor from the 80s.

 

[DaddysTruck]

Ballast resistor it is. I'm not sure if it was connected well enough to do its job, but the truck did run. I cut into the sides to expose the wires where they had broken off. Got a reading of 22k ohms on the multimeter, so it does work. Going to wire it back up and my wire harness/vacuum harness project will be done.

 

[AndyB.]

It's s 22k ohm resistor. It sends rpm information to the eec processor. It will run without it, but will set a code. It's not truly a ballast resistor, which would step down the voltage to the coil.

 

[DaddysTruck]

Hmm that might explain the idle issue and maybe one of the ten codes. Thanks to everyone for the info. I'm glad I decided to do a tear down because I keep finding issues left and right. I replaced a lot of bare and cracked wires on the engine harness, and found several leaks in the vacuum lines. Getting everything sorted out one by one.

 

[drgrcr]

I think it goes on the hot side of the AC wiring, it was used to prevent "fly back" voltage into the EEC system when the AC clutch disengaged.