What is it?

[DLK]

I am halfway through my wire-by-wire rewire of the front half of my 50 Dodge. NAPA is taking a long time to ship my new dimmer switch which will slow me down since a number of the wires hook up to it.

I hope someone can explain what this ceramic thing is that is in one of the wires halfway between the headlight switch and the front of the car. Sorry for the poor picture quality - if it helps I can retake them. (You can see from the picture how bad the insulation was on most of my wiring.) I thought maybe it was a fuse but the ends do not come out. Is this something I need?

[tinlizzy]

Never seen anything like this in a car but old radios had something similiar. Could be a resistor or a capacitor. Just guessing though.

Lee

[norrism1]

Looks like resistor to reduce voltage.

[Plymouthy Adams]

cap..supressor for the gas guage maybe..

[Niel Hoback]

Maybe at some point the car had an eight volt battery and the PO was trying to save the headlights. Grabbing at straws here.

[DLK]

Maybe at some point the car had an eight volt battery and the PO was trying to save the headlights. Grabbing at straws here.

I think you probably hit on the explanation. While the car was 6 volts when I bought it it may very well have been run with 8 volts at some time in the past. The 53 DeSoto I owned before this Dodge was running 8 volts - I switched it back to 6 volts - I found that with 6 volts and zero gauge cables I had as much starting power as the 8 volts with 4 gauge it had when I bought it.