[TR] Lucas smoke

[DLylis at aol.com]

The other night as I was driving the TR3A home from a car club meeting I  
noticed that my ignition warning light was on full.  I only live a few  minutes 
away so I went home.  I checked it out as best I could (not my  strong suit) 
but could find nothing obviously wrong.  The next morning I  drove it over to 
our local generator/alternator/starter guy and he hooked it all  up and said the 
generator is fine and the voltage regulator needs to be  replaced.  He took 
off the cover and showed me that the coil contact at the  D terminals was not 
closing and he pushed it with his finger and it made contact  and the light 
went out and the ammeter went into a charge situation until it  settled at 0 
again.  He said to shut it off and the contact opened  again.  Normal.  I ordered 
a new voltage regulator and installed it  and at idle the contacts remained 
open but when I reved it the contact would  "flutter" and not stay closed.  I 
drove the car and the light stayed on so  I returned home.  With the motor 
running I opened the regulator and closed  the contact and it behaved fine.  I shut 
it off, checked out connections,  started it again, red light on, closed the 
contact, but this time 
the yellow wire from the D terminal to the ignition warning light smoked  and 
melted.  I have pulled out the warning light and the white wire from  the 
warning light to the ignition switch is fine. The only damaged wire is  the 
yellow and it does not appear to have damaged any other wire in the harness,  but I 
need to open it and look more closely.
Any input on what happened?  There is no question that the regulator  is 
connected correctly.  This was marked, checked, and double  checked.
 
David  Lylis
69 TR6 CC26160L
60 TR3A TS74461LO
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