Found under carpet of 1980 mini... what is it?

Found this while pulling the carpets to swap in some new black carpets. I searched the tabco part number and didn’t find anything. 

I’m guessing radio antenna? The other wires from the white plug disappear up in the dash. 

anti theft kill switch ?

Looks like a thermocouple.  Maybe exhaust overtemp if the exhaust runs under the floor in that location?

The end of it kind of looks like a heating element. But yeah, maybe just mangled antenna leftovers. 

That sure looks like a heating element to me.  Taboco makes instant water heaters.  Why it would be installed in a Mini I have no idea.  Was the car from a cold weather area?  I wonder if it's someones creative attempt at getting heat quickly.

English car

English like tea

Tea needs hot water

(in other words, I have no idea)

Engine block heater to preheat in cold weather? They were quite common up here in the northland back in the day. Usually a core plug was removed to install them. Never saw one designed like that.

Car came from Japan, don’t know where it was prior to that 

Looks just like the ignitor in my gas furnace.  Does it shoot flames?

Tells you how hot the heated seats are?

Sure looks like a thermocouple to me

The end of it looks like the tip of a Weller soldering gun.  What's the diameter and pitch of the threaded part?

Edit:  Open up the metal box and take a pic of what lives in there?

Homemade exhaust flame thrower?

Please be a ejecto seat

Professor_Brap (Forum Supporter) said:

Please be a ejecto seat

It was under the drivers seat, so I hope not...

I'll investigate the box tonight.

At least this is keeping me entertained while I try to patiently wait for the upholstery shop to redo the seats!

Only 2 wire thing I can think of under the seats are the air bag sensors.  Maybe that was their way of having the light stay off or something

In reply to Placemotorsports :

not many airbags in 1980. 

In reply to bobzilla :

Or any at all.  Forgot about the '80 part.  I'll keep eating my lunch

As requested, here are photos of the inside of the box  

Close up of the tip

Under the car, my finger on the right is on the gromet in the floor. The cat is there in the exhaust 

11 volts on the red and green wire coming from the dash. Volt meter reads 12 at battery. 

There is continuity between the yellow and blue wires that go to the thermo coupler looking thing. 

Looks like Little Tikes electronics...

Its an soldering iron for the car. Rare accessory!

joking lf course. Either way i think if go ahead and take power off of it. Dont need anything shorting out or causing other probs in that cool mini. 

Looks almost lke a primitive O2 sensor.

The chip inside the box says it's a TA7522S, which looks like a voltage comparator chip made by Toshiba.

My guess is that the probe is a thermocouple or RTD that used to measure exhaust temperature or an old 2 wire O2 sensor. Then the box compared the reading to something. Makes the most sense to me that it was to provide some sort of feedback to a fuel injection system of some kind.

Is this car an SPI or MPI car by chance? Based on the year it shouldn't be, but just wondering if it wasn't fuel injected at some point in its past life. I don't think the sensor and box were stock parts though, so who knows.

TABCO LA-1850 whatever it is/was it seems to pre-date the internet.

That's still looking like a heater to  me and I still have no idea why it would be mounted where it is.

In reply to T.J. :

No fuel injection... has a carb. Your theory is interesting, makes me want to dig deeper into the car’s history.