Good Morning listers,
I am just about to buy my first ever Spitfire - '77 1500. Problem is
the alternator is completely gone. I told the current owner I need her
to get it fixed before I can buy the car, because I don't know if I'll
be able to get it home otherwise - and she didn't seem to have a problem
with this.
Yesterday, she phoned me to say it would take two weeks to get a new
alternator delivered. No problem, I said, I'll see if I can get one any
faster, and 15 minutes later I'd found a Triumph specialist who said
they'd send me one straight away.
So I phoned the owner up again - and that was when she told me that,
according to her brother-in-law, who's the family Spitfire expert, this
car doesn't have a standard alternator. He had asked her to look at the
wires coming out the back of the alternator so he could work out what
alternator it was, and she'd told him that it had two thick wires and
two thin wires - and that was how he knew it wasn't the standard
alternator.
Does this mean anything to anyone? It sounds like I may have ordered
the wrong part, but I really don't think I can phone up the parts place
and ask for an alternator with two thick and two thin wires! I don't
know if this alternator has a name, or what rating it is, or anything
else about it, but if anyone has any ideas I'd be really grateful -
because if I have ordered the wrong one I'd really like to cancel the
order before it's too late!
Alternatively, is it easy to convert the connections to work with a
standard alternator? Or, if it all goes wrong and I can't get hold of
an alternator immediately, does anyone have any idea how far you can get
a Spitfire with a fully-charged battery but no alternator (both with and
without lights)?
I would appreciate any help anyone could give me on this
Dean Dashwood
---------------------------------
|