Earth tab?

[MikeT]

First attempt at adding a pic so forgive if this doesn't work first time.

In the middle of the picture (between the heater hose left and the airfilter box right, held on by one of the (bellhousing?) bolts) seems to be an unused metal spade tab which looks to me like it may be an earth connector but I cannot find any loose leads to re-attach to it. Can anyone confirm what it is? Thanks, Mike

[ACTIVE8]

Well the picture works fine, and certainly helps to explain your question.

Yes, I can see what you mean about it, because it looks like a male spade connector, although I have encountered these type of brackets before on other makes of vehicle. I have seen them used for wiring loom support, with either a special cable holder around the wire, which then plugs into the hole on the bracket, and the stepped bracket stops the special clip from rotating, or a cable tie is passed through from one side around the wire, and back to the other side of the bracket.

[slim123]

No Mike, that aint an earth spade, it's one of those brackets that a connecting block should be supprted on.

When they build the engine up, they dont know what spec car it will be going into, so the easiest way is to fit all of the gubbins to cover all, it maybe that your car has never had anything on here and if you luuk around you will almost certainly find a few more bits and pieces just like this, put there just in case.

Regards
Slim.

[jeremy]

As it seems to be firmly bolted to the engine without any insulation it must be an earth tag.

If you look carefully at your car you'll loose count of the unused wires and plugs you find. There are many versions of each model for many areas of the world that require many accessories and components. If each possible combination had precisely what was needed and no more - you'd curse it when you tried to fit foglights as the unused wiring wouldn't be there!

[slim123]

[quote="jeremy"]As it seems to be firmly bolted to the engine without any insulation it must be an earth tag.

No it aint, its a support.

Regards
Slim.

[jeremy]

Sorry Slim I wasn't disagreeing - I simply was writing my post while you were posting yours - and so hadn't read it.

[slim123]

Jeremy.

No need for apologies I was only trying to create a giggle

I can just remember only too clearly how difficult it can be to get the bloody connectors off these things when you need to, you usually end up braking something and then holding it back together with cable tyes.

Regards
Slim.

[MikeT]

Thanks ACTIVE8, Slim & jeremy, just wanted to make sure it wasn't something crucial like, say, an earth connector that may be causing premature degeneration or overheating of some electrical component or worse.