[TR] TR4 Electrical Issue

[Randall]

> I manually closed the coil on the control box (engine off, battery
> connected) and immediately had begun to let the smoke out of 
> the loom, on the smaller wire on D that feeds.....the ignition light.
> 
> What have I done to cause this failure?

Aha, the light dawns.  You must have a short to ground somewhere in the
yellow wire between the control box and the warning light.  Try
disconnecting it at the control box (which will just disable the light, not
the charging).  Perhaps something shorted while you were swapping leads on
the ammeter.

But, it seems to me that you (or the document you have) has skipped a step.
Try removing the F and D wires from the control box, jumpering them together
with a voltmeter to ground, and starting the engine.  You should see 15v by
raising engine rpm just slightly (no more than 1500 rpm).  Don't let it go
over 20v, though.

BTW, it's unusual for generators to degrade gracefully the way old engines
do.  Any minor fault tends to turn into a major one quickly.  But, the 1.1 -
1.2 might indicate only that the residual magnetism in the housing is
somewhat weak, due to the recent polarity change, so I doubt it's anything
to worry about.

Randall