You know, ya'll amaze me... some stupid question and you go off on a
tangent thread for days... I ask a question that I needed an answer to
quick and don't even get on freking response. I didn't even get any, your
an idiot, your question doesn't make sense etc... I'm was very let down by
you guys...
Anyway,
I bought a really nice 77 from a lady about a year ago. It had the
standard problems, sagging on the drivers side, wanting to steer itself
when you applied throttle etc. She let me basically steal the car from her
because it wouldn't pass the emission test (the car was transplanted from
Nebraska to Colorado). I was like no problem, how difficult can it be to
tune the car for the altitude.
Then she tells me that she's already taken it to the shop and it's going
to be expensive to fix it. It needs an air pump... No problem I think,
it's just been detox'ed, piece of cake... Open the hood and WOW, no air
pump alright, but in it's place, there is this big ole delco alternator
with "custom" brakets and everything. It's not that it needs an air pump
but rather brackets, the alternator, air pump etc...
Anyhow, I start collecting the parts I need. I also decide to replace all
the rubber in the suspension (front and rear) and the springs.
A long time goes by, I get to work on the car sporatically. I find out
about the front bolt of the rear springs :). I fixed that problem with the
small handheld electric grinder (mines a dewalt) and a thin disk. This
also worked well on the lower rear shock link ball joint and a couple of
other things.
Anyhow, I decided to move out of my apartment this month and had to hurry
to get the car back together and out of the garage. Once I figured out
that the upper front mount of the alternator is actually a part of the
water pump and that the original water pump had been "fixed" to allow the
delco alternator to fit, I got the new water pump. I also picked up the
only alternator plug still availible. Turns out the alternator doesn't use
that plug but at least I had some spade plugs to use.
Turned out that the "big" spades that came with this new plug aren't big
enough for the "big" blade on this alternator. This is when I thought I'd
send the note to you guys hoping for an answer or two to give me some
hints as to which wire to hook up where.
Since I didn't get any help from ya'll, I figured the big one must be
power out, the big brown one, but now what? The blades on the alternator
had 2 small ones left, 50/50 I thought :). One of the two smaller ones was
square on the end, the other one kinda tappered like this /--\ at the top.
I tried the indicator wire on the not straight blade thinking one of these
blades doesn't look like the other two, and also one of these wires don't
look like the other.
I then look in the moss catalog pdf file (ain't technology great?) and
found the section on how to convert a 5 wire to the 3 blade thing... It
only used 2 of the wires and the indicator went to blade that was the
square side. So I tried that configuration and cranked it off but no
output.
Realizing that I didn't know enough about alternators, I'm ready for some
input from you guys to help me out in general about alternator theory and
specifically about my wiring delima. Not knowing the intricacies of
alternators and not have a wiring diagram that showed the inside of the
alternator, *and* no hints from you guys (slap slap :)
I played with the VOM and found that certain combination of + and - on
certain posts showed connections. This was one of those where if you
reversed the - and + you got some ohm'age, I decided that meant I was
checking something through a diode? So what does that mean? This happened
between the big blade and the square topped blade.
I figured that if this wire was connected to the indicator light a'la 5
wire to 3 wire diagram, the light would be on because the big brown wire
would be connected to the big post (BATT) and it if electrons flowed in
the right direction, this smaller post would have some amount of power
which would make the indicator light come on. And maybe something magic
would happen inside the alternator to make it go out.
I hooked it up this way (big brown to big blade, brown w/ strip to other
blade). I turned on the key, and the ignition light came on (so far so
good). Let me digress and say that with the gm alternator, even though all
the wires were connected to the alternator, the ignition light never came
on. Anyhow, it went out at some point while I was cranking the motor over
and never came back on. Flakey I thought..
O'yeah, before I started cranking it, I connected the VOM to the battery.
When the beast finally sputtered to life (the choke isn't quite right :)
there was no difference on the VOM.
Since the VOM was a very cheap toy thing I got one time (and the craftsman
engine analyzer was already packed) I didn't really trust the VOM. Let me
say the volt part that is, only the ohm part I can verify by touching the
leads together :). As a sanity check, I hooked the cheap VOM up to my
daily driver and discovered that low and behold, it didn't wasn't charging
either :) So I did the ole "disconnect the battery and see if it still
runs", positive test for alternator output on old cars :). It promptly
died :( But, when I re-connected the battery, the ignition light started
working again!
At this point I moved the car into a parking place at the complex (how
sad, and I can't believe that you guys let me down so bad. Can you tell
yet that I'm trying to put ya'll on a guilt trip? Yup, you are responsible
for my pride and joy to having to not only spend the night outside near
strangers, but was now 40 miles away from me. It's never been that far
from me :)
Anyhow, since the alternator was a used one that I really didn't know if
it worked, I decided I needed to take it to an expert. Now before I moved
to colorado, I had a really nice starter and generator shop that I used.
They had parts scattered everywhere and a guy who knew everything about
any starter or alternator I took to him. He never over charged me and nine
times outta ten would repair the unit for 5-10 bucks rather than just
trying to sell me a new unit. The hunt for a new shop is on!
Well, I found a place kinda like that. When I walked into the shop the
first thing outta his mouth was "MG", good sign! The guy tested my
alternator and said it was putting out but that the regulator was stuck,
and that he can fix it. Guess I'll now find out about his prices :)
So... Now I will have an alternator that I know works but the question
still remains, how do I hook it up or better yet, lets talk about how an
alternator works.
Seems that I remember someone telling me that it takes some juice
(voltage) to make the alternator start generating power, unlike a
generator. Seems like Alternators are AC and generators are DC, which
means the alternator will need some number of diodes arranged in a square
pattern (from some old physics class) to convert the AC into DC.
Hmmm... lets see, the indicator wire was right cause it need to get power
to the ignition light, the big brown wire was on the right one cause they
are both so freaken big, and the small brown needs to be on the other
small blade and is used to make provide the jump the alternator needs
to start making power????
So why did the indicator light go off and not come back on until I pulled
the battery cable?
I'm still looking for a *BIG* spade for that middle blade on the
alternator cause the ones that came with the new 3 wire plug kit
isn't big
enough to fit this one. I kinda had to "re-do" one side of the new ones
so it would fit at all, but I really want/need the real
thing? Ideas?
I guess it's time for me to be educated in alternators too. Anyone care to
explain it?
Please respond this time cause I really want my car close to me and in
it's nice little garage. It even got rained on *gasp* yesterday :(
Thanks, and sorry to be so long winded....
-craig
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