Looking over various pics of engine bays of 69 Cougars I haven’t seen very many that have this electrical box on the driver side firewall above the brake booster. What is it?
It’s for the intermittent wipers.
Was that standard on an XR-7? Doesn’t say anything about it on the window sticker or Marti Report.
Probably added by a previous owner then.
Check your wiper switch… if it’s an intermittent wiper switch it will turn/sweep to the left to adjust the intermittent timing (in addition to positions for off/low/high speeds). Not standard on xr7, was an available option on any cougar. Could have been added by a previous owner. It should show up as an option on your Marti if factory installed.
What was the original cost of the option?
I’m not exactly sure but it was pretty cheap like around $25… I’m sure someone here knows the exact price.
According to the original window sticker for my White 70 XR-7 it was $25.90. Not a high price but about 8 hours of work for most people in late 1969.Average income was about $5890,00 in 1969)
$25 was a good guess! Actually I’m surprised how much an am fm stereo cost (over $200)
For sure., it was expensive. Kind of makes you wonder how they sold any of them.
Actually $375 was the price for air conditioning.
Your correct Royce. I should know better then to use my phone for small print details…
Any chance it would have been missed on the Marti or window sticker? Likely a previous owner install, but the parts look as old as the car. Maybe a dealer install?? Car is a well equipped early San Jose build with factory A/C, P/W, P/B, P/S, AM/FM etc.
Possible but highly unlikely. You could possibly check for date codes on the intermittent components and see if they’re a match for the build date range of your car. I believe it was a plug and play conversion so no wiring changes were necessary.
My 71 had intermittent wipers added by the original owner. He even left the original non intermittent switch in the trunk.
The big question is… does the intermittent feature work?
Only markings I see on the box is a Ford oval emblem and C9ZB-17C476- The wiper switch inside the car does have the intermittent feature as well when you turn it counter clockwise.
The 17476 base number is for an intermittent wiper, called out as a wiper “governor” in the MPC.
Try buying the Eminger report from Marti. That may shed some light on the original options for you. And yes, the intermittent wiper set up is a plug and play replacement for the standard 2 speed wipers.
Randy Goodling
CCOA #95
I have that.