Bob Danielson wrote:
> On my car the ballast was a blue cylinder (about the size of a condenser)
> attached to the engine block right by the coil.
in response to a question from John Duhart:
> > Question, is the 'External Ballast' I keep seeing people talk about that
> red wire that is covered with a white mesh? I saw this wire on the TR6 75
> wiring diagram, and I've found this wire on my wiring harness. What is
it's
> purpose?
Bob and John,
The "red wire covered with a white mesh" is the ballast resister. It is shown
on the wiring diagram as "KW," which is Red/White. The blue thing on the side
of the coil is part of a noise suppression scheme, to reduce the ignition
noise in the radio. The ballast resister is ALWAYS wired in series with the
coil. The blue noise suppressor is wired in parallel with the coil. On a TR6,
the ballast wire is laced into the harness along with the other wires. On
early spitfires, and most American cars, it is a white ceramic looking thing,
with two terminals on it, usually located close to the coil, but NOT in the
wiring harness, as it gets quite hot.
For an explaination of the ballast resister function, go to:
http://www.vtr.org/maintain/ballast.html
Dan Masters,
Alcoa, TN
'71 TR6---------3000mile/year driver, fully restored
'71 TR6---------undergoing full restoration and Ford 5.0 V8 insertion - see:
http://www.sky.net/~boballen/mg/Masters/
'74 MGBGT---3000mile/year driver, original condition, slated for a V8 soon!
'68 MGBGT---organ donor for the '74
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