Eric,
On the "SINGLE WIRE" self exciting alternator... you need
to connections. A good ground, and the other connection
to a BATTERY.
Since you only measured "3V" on the positive post, you are
not hooked up to the battery at all. Should be around 12.5,
once charging you should see around 14.0 Volts.
I do recommend running the alternator connections DIRECT
to the battery for checking everything out. You might have
a fried ammeter that is internally opened.
A nice tool is having a "clamp on" DC CURRENT PROBE for
a good FLUKE Test Meter. You can at least tell the current
flowing through the wire. Of course being cheap that I am,
I just measure the voltage drop across a known wire, and
"guesstimate" as to the current flowing through the wire.
Once again those cheap "taiwan" test meters for $15... toss
into the nearest trash can. Spend $80-$200 for a decent FLUKE
test meter, and you'll save hours of frustrations in the long
run.
Cheers,
Tom Walter
Austin, TX
TDROC
Eric Frisbee wrote:
>
> Lots of great advice so far! thanks! Here's what I have so far...
> It's an AC Delco... It looks brand new, in fact, found a receipt for
> it... less than 12 months old by the receipt, so it is brand new, but I
> tested it anyway... 14V under load and works perfectly. I have it
> mounted in a early '67 on the right side. I have a ground wire run to
> the grounding post on the alternator. The old primary wire for the
> original alternator is run to the positive post on the new alternator.
> With all this connected and working, I fired up the car and revved to 2K
> RPM... moved it up to 2500 and got a solid 3V on the multimeter. 3K-5K
> didn't produce any different results, it remained at 3V. Hope this
> helps anyone thinking on this problem... I'll continue working on it
> some more tonight... Aren't these Delco conversions fun??? :)
>
> Eric
> WyCROC
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