Dear Listers,
I have a 2-year old Lucas alternator on my TR7 Sprint. It has been repaired
no fewer than 3 times (rectifier, then brushes, then bearing)!
Now I find that with the lights on, I run hotter (the temp gauge goes to a
bit past 3/8 of the range, whereas without lights it sits at about 1/4 even
on hot days). The alternator certainly qualifies as "the usual suspect", but
the battery terminals show 14 V at idle, whether the lights are on or off,
and the idle rpm goes down only a fraction with the lights on. Is this a
lousy test for an alternator?
Alternatively, could this be caused by a partial short (low-resistance
link?) in the light circuit? (But then, the above tests should have revealed
something!)
I'm about ready to test the survivability of Lucas alternators to repeated
blows from a large crowbar.
Any suggestions from you electrical wizards out there?
Allen Nugent
Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering
University of New South Wales
Sydney 2052 Australia
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