Re: Voltage Regulator advice

[farna@xxxxxxx]

Yeah, a better idea for semi-purists (if you were a purists you'd run a generator!) would be to gut the old points regulator and wire an electronic one inside the case to the connection points outside. That way the old wiring could be used. But wait a minute... there is no direct to battery connection on a generator, all goes through the regulator, so that might not work so hot. Alternator would probably burn the battery charge wire up. 

Best thing is to just use a self regulated alternator and do what I did once -- cut all the wiring that goes solely to the regulator or between regulator and generator back inside or very close to the wiring harness then tape into the harness, leaving the old regulator in place and seemingly connected. If the alternator is down low and hard to see like on the old 196 people won't even notice, and those who do will be baffled by the connected regulator. 

There is one more possibility for the purist. There is a company that now makes an alternator for Ford flat head V-8s that LOOKS like a generator. I think it's limited to 35A because of size and heat issues, but it would be worth looking into if you really want something to look original but be a bit more reliable. I doubt any AMCers would be interested in such a high dollar piece though. You'd be better served ot put a 1A battery maintainer on the car since if you're keeping the gen you probably have a restored car that's seldom driven...


On May 20, 2005 Tom Jennings wrote:

> On Fri, 20 May 2005 farna@xxxxxxx wrote:
> 
> > But would an old bi-metal regulator even work? Just out of curiosity...
> 
> Hmm... no idea! Impedances are probably all wrong, and will
> probably have the wrong set points, but if you want to try it, I'd
> run the alternator isolated from the rest of the car with a test
> battery or some sort of load, like a headlamp or fan motor.
> 
> It would be an amusing and weird test :-)
> 
> 
> >
> >
> > On May 19, 2005 Tom Jennings wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, 19 May 2005 farna@xxxxxxx wrote:
> >>
> >>> Heck, I wonder if you could feed the alternator outputs into an
> >>> old fashioned generator regulator? Probably wouldn't handle
> >>> anyting over 35A though...
> >>
> >>


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