Technical ‘63 Ford mystery part

The guy who lives behind me has a ‘63 Falcon. He’s been trying to track down some electrical gremlins in his stock gauges and in the process found this under his dashboard. No part numbers on it just “IGN” “F” and “I”. He has no idea what it is, and neither do I.
Anyone know what this part is?
Thanks

 

Voltage reducer/regulator gizmo for the gauges.

 

It's an instrument cluster voltage regulator.

 

IVR; instrument voltage regulator. I cuts 12 volts down to a pulsed voltage of about 5 - 6 volts to power the gauges.

 

^^^^^ Yes, Instrument cluster voltage regulator. Power in - power out (to gauges) and it must be grounded. Easiest to check with an ****og voltmeter. 12 volts to the ignition side, pulsating voltage (averaging 5 volts approx.) on the gauge side. Again, the unit must be grounded.

there are some solid state replacements available out there. I haven't run across a good one yet. Be careful what you buy if you need one. Another note, if the output voltage has been stuck at 12 volts for any length of time your gauges may be damaged. I replace faulty voltage regulators with blue streak part number. VRC-604

 

Aha! Thanks guys. He said his gremlins are the gauges having a mind of their own. Maybe this is the problem.

 

An ****og volt meter will show the pulsing, cheap digital meters will read all over the place. Not sure how a top shelf digital will react as I never used one on an IVR.

 

That is a ******* of a part. Will give you all kinds of symptoms and electrical problems until you finally figure the culprit out. Kind of like MoPar's damn ballast resistors.

 

Used to grab them for 12 volt conversions when harvesting other parts in the junkyard. Probably all gone now-a-days.

 

Test this with a load connected to see if you have output. If it is not working and you can use a 3 -terminal regulator, like a LM7805 (5volt) or LM7806 (6volt). {A solid-state regulator replacement.)

 

Ford used those for years, well into the '70s. The problem is when Ford went to printed circuit boards for the instrument cluster in the mid-late '60s the regulator no longer had regular terminals on it, it snapped onto the board like a 9 volt battery. Those can be used, but you have to solder onto those or rig a small board for it to snap to.