Hi List
My 63 TR4 was not keeping a charge on a nearly new Gold Die Hard
battery. The problem was traced to the regulator when I measured about
11.6 volts across the battery terminals with the engine running. I reset
the regulator and cutout air gaps, refaced the contacts and followed the
factory manual on setting the open circuit voltage to 16.3 V or so. With
the engine running at about 2200 RPM, I set the output voltage at 13.3
V. Cool, lets take a ride. Got out on the road, glanced at the ammeter
and it's pegged off the top of the scale at 35 or whatever amps. Whoa,
back to the house. I backed the setting down to about 12.2 V, which
produced about 10 amps on the ammeter. But that setting would not carry
the headlights, driving lights and electric fan. I raised the output to
12.5V, which draws 12-13 amps on the meter and stays above zero with the
lights and fan on. In fact, the ammeter now reads +2A all the time, even
with the battery disconnected..... It didn't used to do that.
In 40 years, this is the first time I've ever messed with a regulator.
The manual is a little vague about a couple of things, like where to
measure the open circuit voltage. I presumed terminals D and E on the
regulator. It also doesn't say not to gag the regulator contacts tight
when putting the cardboard strip in the air gap. The whole thing seems
to run and charge the battery as God and Lucas intended. Did I miss
anything? Should the amperage be that sensitive to the voltage setting?
Some other background:
When I got the car back from the paint shop last year, I didn't notice
till I got home that they left the main wire harness ground
disconnected. I fixed that, but the generator went toes up two days
later with 2000 miles on it.
The regulator is 12 years old, but has less than 20000 miles on it.
Any comments from the electrical gurus?
TIA
Pete Fullam
/// triumphs@autox.team.net mailing list
/// or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
/// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive
|