I believe the thin brown wire is for sensing the voltage. It allows the
regulator
to sense the voltage at the starter relay instead of at the alternator output.
This way, any voltage drop in the cable to the alternator
will be regulated away.
Probably the your regulator module or maybe the diodes are bad.
BTW, I have seen one model regulator module for $42 and another for $15. They
are actually interchangeable. Over they years they made several variations of
the regulator module that all work with the same alternator chassis.
Some, for example, don't actually use the brown sensing wire.
Doug Braun
'72 Spit
At 08:14 PM 6/19/02 -0400, you wrote:
>Oh god of geeks, accept the humble petition of a penitent software
>"engineer"!
>
>My '73 GT6 has a 9mA leak. With all circiuts open, something's drawing
>down the battery.
>
>There is a pair of hot (brown) wires from the hot contact of the starter
>solenoid, going to the alternator-- one of the pair, the thick one, goes
>to the middle of three alternator connectors; the thin one goes to a
>second alternator contact (while a brown/yellow wire at the third
>alternator contact goes to the ignition warning light). This sets the
>stage, I hope.
>
>By disconnecting the thin brown wire at the alternator, or the
>thick/thin pair at the starter solenoid (which share a ring connector),
>the current leak goes away. This tells me there's a high resistance
>short to ground inside the alternator.
>
>My questions to The Oracle are, what's the thin hot wire to the
>alternator for? What should I do about this alternator? Of course in
>the meantime, I'll pull the known good unit off the parts car, but if
>the original alt is rebuildable I'd like to know what fault to look for.
>
>Thanks! and damn modernity! and damn Microsoft! and God bless miniskirts!
>--
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