Thank you to everyone who replied, either 1:1 or to the list.
When I studies medicine, I was taught "common things occur commonly", but
with the proviso that sometimes there can be more than one thing going on.
I guess that may be the case here.
1. The ammeter did not show charge on the other car, so I have a faulty
ammeter. Switching ammeters shows it is charging.
2. BUT.....the battery is not holding a charge. I guess that could be a
bad battery, but could it be anything else? Is there any way there could be
a slow drain of the charge?
And to make matters worse, I join the prestigious group of listers who
rebuild an engine only to find a large oil puddle on the floor. Sigh.....
Andrew
-----Original Message-----
From: Randall [mailto:tr3driver@ca.rr.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2009 10:52 AM
To: 'Andrew Uprichard'; triumphs@autox.team.net
Subject: RE: [TR] Aarghhhhh !
> I recently "finished" a second TR3 (yes, the one which ran lean) and now
> have an electrical problem I can't figure out. The car is wired EXACTLY
> the
> same as the other TR3, but the battery is not charging. I swapped the
> alternators between the cars and the same thing happened. The ammeter
> records a negative draw, but nothing positive.
>
> Suggestions ?
I've been mulling this over, and decided that what I think you mean is
impossible. Are you sure the ammeter shows charge on the other car? Many
of the directions found on the web and other places say to connect the
alternator such that the charge does not appear on the ammeter; since the
alternator can put out more than the 30 amps that the stock ammeter is
designed to handle.
Some alternators seem to rely more on the current through the warning light
than others do. For my alternator conversion, I found that the stock
warning light did not pass enough current for the alternator to reliably
start working at modest rpm. After I got tired of having to rev to 3500 rpm
to "wake up" the alternator, I added a resistor across the warning light to
pass more current. Don't recall the value offhand, but I can get it tonight
if you want.
Randall
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