Harllequin said:
If you look at the engine from the front of the car. On the left hand side shock absorber pillar thing there is a small metal vented box thingy with a coil of wire in it. It has a few heavy ish guage wires comming from it.
What the hell is it and whats it for.
Depends which of the many things it is which get bolted to that pillar:
if it has
three wires plugged into it, one at either end, and one in the middle (and 1.7 Ohms moulded into the plastic around the back, and looks a bit like the thing on the half brick in the attachement - it is indeed a dim-dip ballast resistor as mentioned by
nuovapanda.
It generally lives on top of the radiator, and doesn't even get a mention in "Haynes", but is in "Porter".
The idea of "dim-dip" is that if you select "side lights" when driving along, instead of the 6 watt parking lights you get a large (dim) source of light from the dip beam, as it is fed via this substantial wire wound resistor.
It was a legal requirement a while ago, possibly discontinued now.
Failing that, if it looks like the thing under the bonnet of my (very early '93 injected, but with no brake servo) Panda ( with "Egyptian brakes" fitted to the same pillar ), and your Panda has fuel injection, it is indeed the injector ballast resistor as mentioned by
Panda_Boy2.
As I understand it, its job is to limit the current into the injector (and probably protect the ECU as well).
