9 point contact in engine room

pmansson

pmansson

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My Italian CSi, 1974, has a small 9 point contact mounted just behind the power steering fluid reservoir. It has an orange lid on it. It is the same contact as the upper, smaller one behind the instrument cluster (for the wiring of the 4 instruments).
Anyone seen this before or know what it´s used for?
It has wires underneath.
It looks very original.
Provision for some early style diagnostics perhaps??
 
pmansson said:
Provision for some early style diagnostics perhaps??
Click to expand...
Yes. At least in the US, in the early 70s (1972 if not earlier) BMW dealers had a machine called a Program Tester, which could read very simple data from this socket.

If you look at the factory shop manual ("blue books") the very first section is "BMW Program Engine Test". It provides basic tune-up test data: various voltage measurements, ignition dwell and timing and even CO measurements.

I think the only practical use I have heard of for do-it-yourselfers is that you can use it as a remote starter by bridging 2 of the contacts.

(This was all long before OBD1 was more than a figment of some engineer's imagination!)
 
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Ah, the car was imported to the US in the mid-late 80s or so. The contact might have been added at that stage..? or perhaps it was a feature of the >74 cars which had a number of changes to them.
 
Diagnostic Adapter

pmansson said:
I just saw that my Euro CSi, made in Feb. 1973 has it as well.
Click to expand...

This diagram for a "DIAGNOSTIC ADAPTER" may seem familiar.
It seems to depict twin carburetors. However, it apparently covers late model E3's including Si's. (Part no. 61121354052) Since it is "NLA" and it is doubtful that the test equipment is all that available, it probably doesn't matter what model it was originally designed to fit. :wink:
43.png
 
i remember those

I had about a dozen or more 2002's of various years. In at least one, while cleaning up the engine compartment (I like 'em tidy) I removed the connection point for the test equipment. The car then would not start. Reference to a wiring diagram and attention to the ignition circuits showed why, there was something which passed through the connection point that was critical to ignition. A little thought solved the problem.
 
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