JB> JB>> Rainly night city driving does it to me, wipers and two headlights
JB> JB>> while spendind most of my time at idling the motor  while
at traffic
JB> JB>> lights....

JB> JB>> I drive round in a lower gear, and apply the park brake and run the
JB> JB>> motor a little faster when stopped... seems to solve it for me.

JB> JE> You haven't solved a cotton picking thing. You have just
JB> JE> circumvented the problem! Why not actually FIX the problem
JB> JE> by replacing the alternator or finding the root cause of the
JB> JE> problem?

JB>I don't drive much at night anyway, or visit the city often, and the
JB>weather is mostly fine.

But what about the times you DO drive at night, or visit the
city or the weather isn't fine or all three conditions
at once???

JB>I've has the car for 4 years and this problem has presented itself twice
JB>haviong a manual transmission and few flat streets in brisbane city it's
JB>not a big problem if a warm motor stalls with a flat battery.

JB>The car is 10 years old, when I got it it had the external regulator, I
JB>replaced altenator with a used one when the first one's bearings failed
JB>and the internal reglator on that one lasted about 6 months.

My 92 Ford Crown Vic and my 92 Chevy PU are both 10 years
old - I wouldn't dream of operating either as you are doing.

JB>The problem may be with the internal regulator not being designed for
B>this climate,

Not a likely thing. We have climates here where the day time
temp is 110-120 degrees F. and also places where it is 10-20
degrees below 0 - F. Internal regulators work just fine
nearly always. The few  that fail work just fine when
replaced.

JB>the external regulator keeps the battery charged, and a fault is indicated
JB>diagnosed if the battery voltage drops to 12v or lower with the engine
JB>running at a moderate speed.

JB>I've considered making a regulator that uses the altyenators auxilliary
JB>half-bridge to power the field but I haven't quite figured out how I should
JB>do that.


JB> This is what it had

JB>          instrumentation fuse
JB>          .
JB>          .       . . . Altenator warning lamp
JB>          .      .
JB>          .  |  .           . diode to stop "afterglow" in the lamp
JB>   ign+   .  |  .         .'
JB>   ------oxo-+-(X)-----|>|-----.   _____\
JB>                               |  ||~~T~/ to bat+
JB>  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|. ||. | . .
JB>                               |  ||  |
JB>             .------------|>|--|  ||  |
JB>    ___|\|__ 1 __|\|___________|__||  |
JB>   ||~~|/|~~~~~~~|/|~~||~~~~~~~|~~~   `- sense wire to regulator
JB>   ||                 ||       |
JB>   ||         .-------||--|>|--+--- power wire to regulator
JB>   ||__|\|__ 2 __|\|__||       |
JB>   ||~~|/|~~~~~~~|/|~~||       |
JB>   ||                 ||       |
JB>   ||         .-------||--|>|--'
JB>   ||__|\|__ 3 __|\|__||    small rectifier with 1A diodes
JB>   ||~~|/|~~~~~~~|/|~~~
JB>   ||
JB> __||___ main rectifier with chunky 50A (I guess) diodes
JB>///////
JB>        1 2 3 are connections to altenator the stator windings.

JB>What I've got presently uses a relay to switch in a three-terminal generic
JB>external regulator  (one terminal "B" gets the battery
voltage via the relay
JB>the other "D" goes to the field terminal of the altenetor (the other
JB>terminal is bolted to thr chassis)

Ingenious to say the least, but a good factory regulator
designed for the alternator.car should prove better.

Jay


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 þ OLXWin 1.00b þ Pete Rose sat on a tack. Pete rose!