My Alternator (rebuild 3 years ago) needed to be replaced because it was not charging my battery, it was putting out less than 12V at idle.
With some poking around and testing it was determined the the problem was the regulator. One of the transistor's leg has broken off, it looks like it was broken during manufacture which explains why the output of the alternator never got over 12.6V after the rebuild.
I did a quick repair by soldering the broken leg back onto the regualtor and that seems to have done the trick.
The permenate fix was replacing the transistor and to seal the circuit board from moisture. I relocated the transistor so the entire circuit board would fit better inside the case. To finish the repair I used liquid electrical tape to cover up the circuit board.
Here is the original Lucus regualtor schematic. I have traced the circuit board that I fixed but have not scanned in the new schematic yet.
Here are some interrior shots of the car with the dash apart and seats out.
This is my dimmer modification, I basically replaced the original unit (it was already broken) which is just a high power potentiometer with solid state circuits. Here are pictures on how my design is mounted onto the back of the dash, wired up and a hand drawn schematic.
The car has had an electrical fire before I bought it. Some wires were damaged and the fuses box melted. So, I decided to replace the fuses with circuit breakers. Since the old box was melted I designed a new panel that would work with circuit breakers. Here are the pictures of the panel on and before installing it into the car .
The wiring harness had to be rebuild. The damage was much less severe that I had first thought. Most of the time was spend labelling all the connections and undoing the previous owner's quick fixes. Some wires had to be replaced but most were in good condition. It is a little hard to see from the pictures but I have used spirial wraps to group the wires. That made reconnecting everything back together much easier.
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Concordia University Electrical and Computer Engineering 1455 De Maisonneuve O. H851 Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3G 1M8 Telephone: (514) 848-3115 Fax: (514) 848-2802 Email: dave@ece.concordia.ca