alright, just picked up a 64 Nova and have been toying with it.

It didnt seem to be charging the battery very well while it was running. I put a voltage tester in it and it said just about 12 while running, and when I revved it up the numbers didnt change at all. Shouldnt i have seen the voltage go up as the alt charged the battery. this was an external regulator setup with 4 wires running to the alt. The thing I thought was wierd was that out of the four wires, there were 2 big ones which both ran and grounded and 2 small wires which went to the regulator. That made no sense to me, wheres the big wire to charge the battery??

anyway, i switched out to a newer camaro style alt, with the one power post and the little two prong plug. Will this alternator work without the little plug???

i hooked it up, and ran the power post to the battery and left the other plug blank obviously. I unplugged the plug from the regulator and started it. I still didnt get a higher reading at the battery when revving it.

the only thing i havent done is disconnect the battery with the engine running to see if the alt is keeping the car running. I will do that momentarily and post again.

HELP PLEASE!!!

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Currently own: 2001 Xtreme, 85 IROC, 87 S10
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No, it wont. That plug has a wire that powers the regulator and makes it work, there is one other you have to hook up if it has a gauge and you want it to work, I cant remember which tho I could go look

 

I think I was wrong about that second wire (brown/white stripe, right next to the big red wire for the power to the reg), I have it hooked to an ignition source... that must be the one that energizes the voltage reg, and the other on the plug must be to power the voltage reg.

The old alternator should have had a large stud on the back thats the power lead off the alternator to hook up to the battery.

I would advise installing a fusible link in the voltage reg power lead, and hook it to the battery or the starter solenoid so you dont fry it with voltage spikes. You could hook it to the terminal on the back of the alt, but that makes it more prone to getting spiked.

[This message has been edited by madmax (edited May 20, 2001).]

 

k, so I can jump from the power terminal to the red wire in the plug right? and then what do i hook the brown wire up to???

 

just went down and hooked it up with red wire jumped to power post, and brown wire hooked to nothing. BTW, i am just tryin to get this working, permanent solution will be a new one wire alternator

 

MYZ,

WTF are you going to do with a '64 Nova? Do I smell a sleeper on the way?

Max is on it (as usual). Tha alternator output is directly from the alternator, and the regulator only connects to the field windings (brushes, actually).



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Later,
Vader
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"Fear is how I fall, Confusing what is real..."
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[This message has been edited by Vader (edited May 20, 2001).]

 

...and don't be so quick to slam in a one-wire electronically regulated alternator. The cool thing about the mechanical regulators is that you can set the output voltage just about anywhere you want, which can be an advantage for coil primary current and spark energy. As long as the battery and any other systems on the vehicle will tolerate a bit higher voltage, you have a "free" high output ignition system.

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Later,
Vader
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"Fear is how I fall, Confusing what is real..."
Adobe Acrobat Reader

 

Vader, you totally lost me, what is going on in that diagram man? I feel like i am dumb here, but alternators have never really been understood by me, which is odd, because I have a really good knowledge on how to correctly fix most electrical problems...

please explain more, are you saying i shoudl rewire and try to use the external regulator setup???

 

i just went down and looked, my alt is marked bat, grd, R, and F on the back.

the regulator is marked 1,2,3 and 4 and below the reg is a relay or circuit breaker looking thing with two poles with power going into it and out of it right from the battery

the alt was hooked up with both the bat and grn terminals running over by the regulator and grounding, the two smaller wires R and F were running to the two middle wires in the 4 wire plug to the regulator. Im not sure where the other two wires are going from the reg, but they are small and none look like they would support the large wire coming from the alt as I am getting from your diagram above...I think..

can you tell me anything about making this alt I have work? the newer internal reg setup

also, wouldnt you assume the old alternator is fried from being hooked up straight to gorund. Although the wierd part is I drove the car pretty far yesterday and it stayed running and started okay.hmm..

HELP!

 

Considering I got lost (as usual) I'm kinda surprised

MYN, Thats the diagram for your old setup. I guess Vader is saying you can change one of the resistors (on the right part of the pic) and up the voltage. If I did that on my old ride, it would probably burn up the 35 year old wiring

 

heres my stuff in case it helps

<img src=http://ponykillerz1.tripod.com/reg.jpg>

 

well, I went down and tried it with the newer style alt with the red wire from the plug hooked to teh bat post on the alt and the brown wire from the plug hooked to nothing. It seems okay and when i unhooked the bat cable with the car running, it stayed running, so its doing something. I need to run it to autozone or something to get it tested to see how well its working though. I did start it and left it running for about 10 minutes and all seemed well. I hope not hooking up the brown wire is hurting anything, the last thing i need is 36 year old wiring going up in flames..

any other ideas? help?

 

bttt

 

<tap> <tap> Is this thing on??

 

Dude... read my post about hooking up the alt corectly. I think we are both asking the same question tonight.

If I am understanding things correctly, you need to hook that brown wire (field wire) up to a switched 12V source and that tells the alt that the car is ON and to start charging the battery. One thing I've also learned is that you have to have some sort of resistance in that wire so the alt does try to crarge through that wire instead and fry the trio doide...

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1984 z28 w/ a 357 cu in. monster engine which is looking like the posterchild for Edelbrock with the exception of the Holley 750vac... all the suspension stuff... 9-bolt posi disk is in...

-=ICON Motorsports=-

 

just to let you know, I went to autoze tonight with mine hooked up with the internal reg alt, with the red wire from the plug jumped right to the positive post, and the brown wire hooked to nothing. It showed 50 amps on the autozone on car test and the guy said it looked great, providing like 14.3 volts.

 

Interesting. I wonder how long it would last like that. Is it a stock alt or one of those 1-wire alts?