Okay, today's curious question - What is this component?
 

Okay, we're restoring the Probe 16 - see this thread here:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/1074841-adams-m-505-probe-16-restoration-project.html

and I came across this component, which I've seen on and off throughout the years. I thought this was a terminal block, but there appears to be resistance across the terminals, so I'm not 100% sure. I think I've seen them before on cars I was parting out - it's not completely foreign to me, but I never took a very close look or investigated. I don't have an electrical diagram for this car, so it's anyone's guess where each wire goes exactly, but I think it's for the electric motor to raise the headlamps.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1605644596.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1605644613.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1605644613.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1605644613.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1605644613.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1605644613.jpg

Thoughts?

-Wayne

From the other thread:

Yes, that's pretty much what I thought too, although there's more resistance across these terminals than I would like to normally see. Almost like there are internal resistors or something. Or, it could just be really old and corroded like everything else in this area. I haven't traced all the wires back to anything else to figure out what these actually go to, but two of them have jumpers that go to the terminals on the headlamp motor switch.

-Wayne

Looks to me like a bridge rectifier. I used them in the past to covert between circuits/components that were AC but had DC available in the rest of the circuit. Or vice versa.

It is a bridge rectifier. I think 4 diodes in series with taps at the corners?

Of course it would be something odd and unusual. This car continues to surprise even with the most simplest of things. What in heaven’s name would one of these be used for? I guess I need to keep digging.

More thoughts are welcome!

Wayne

Looks like the suggested bridge rectifier in terms of shape and size. Strange thing - those are typically used in power supplies to convert AC input to DC output voltage when followed by a capacitor(s) on the output. I'm not sure where AC would come into play on your vehicle in order to be used as the input supply.

Thanks everyone. I'll take a closer look at the wiring tonight and see if I can figure out why they would use one of these in there. I think I'll clean it up and reuse it if it's fine, but I'll also buy a spare (they appear to be like $3) just in case.

Cool deal, thanks for the insight - I merged this thread with the one on the restoration, and I will close this for now...

-Wayne