1964 Light/Electrical Issue

M

mschertz3

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Jun 12, 2022
Thunderbird Year
1964
Hello, new to the group!

All the lights work: headlights, turn signal, brake lights, interior dash. Low-beam headlights work fine all the time. When I turn to hi-beam headlights, they'll work but after a minute or two will blink off and back on, and take out the rest of the lights with them.

I took the lights fixtures apart today, wires and to/from all the headlights looked good. Now in the engine compartment, left side behind the lights near the voltage regulator, I found the below: the black wire goes to no where, and appears to have broken off of something, the white wire goes to no where, and the rusty cylinder on the top might have originally had a wire coming out of its right side:

Can anyone tell me what the rusty cylinder is, and if a wire should be coming out of it? Any ideas on the black and white wires? Any idea if this is contributing to my flashing on/off hi-beam headlight problem?

Thanks

Michael

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It's a capacitor to help with with increasing the life of the points in the regulator. This would not cause your problem. Have you replaced your headlights with Halogen type or such? I have and the system is working fine but I am adding relays to the headlight circuit to remove the heavy load to the light switch.
 
Sounds like a breaker doing it's job. Could be as simple as a bad connection at the headlight connector to the bulb. The wires get brittle and a can of liquid electrical tape should be on your work bench. The wires as they enter the connector are a weak spot.
 
I had this problem on my '61 years ago. Try replacing the circuit breaker first. They do go bad....
 
If the problem persists after following the preceding advice; You might check the dimmer switch.
 
Thanks for the hints, I'm going to try replacing the circuit breaker first. I pulled the old one out, says 12V, 12A on it. I've been searching around online the last day, absolutely cannot find anywhere that's selling a 12V, 12A circuit breaker. I see plenty of 12V, 10A and 12V, 15A options. Any thoughts?
 
A 15 amp will work, just takes a little more to trip it. 3 more amps isn't a big deal.
 
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