Unknown component

[Burt]

Hoping someone out there can shed come light on this. There is a small metal box screwed to the front of the front firewall of my 1966 337A. It is an approximately two inch sealed cube with electrical terminals on each side. There are two wires connected to one side of the box and two wires connected to the other side of the box. The wires go to the front cowl flap motor. I studied the wiring diagrams for the cowl flaps and could not find any clue as to what is in the box. The way this came to my attention was that my front engine cowl flaps stopped functioning on a trip last weekend. So this week I was troubleshooting the system and found that one of the wires connecting this box to the front cowl flap motor was broken where it was soldered to one of the terminals on the box. After completing the repair, the front cowl flaps now function normally. Even though I found the problem and was able to repair it successfully, I would still like to know the purpose and function of the sealed, cube shaped box.
Burt