Quote:
Originally Posted by init4fun
 Hey there squirrel guy ,
The ballast resistor on those cars was a piece of "resistance wire" of the exact same type as on the cords of the "curtain burner" radios of the mid to late 1930s . The wire would outwardly appear as a normal wire , but when cut into was revealed to be a finely wound coil of wire under that insulation , and thus a "wired in" ballast resistor was provided . truth be told , in my days of yore working on cars , I only ran into a couple of Fords with an open ballast wire , VS literally DOZENS of failed Plymouth ceramic block style ones .
Classic symptom was , car would start and run as long as the key was in the start position , but when let to return to the Run position after starting , the engine would instantly quit (as the boost 12 volts went away and the ballast wasn't there to provide the running voltage) |
Yes I remember the Chrysler ones, and in most cases when they went bad, they were cracked, and easily spotted. I didn't know about the radio wire, what was the purpose of that wire in radios...? Most had a big power transformer so I can't imagine a reason for a ballast resistor....