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MG MGA - alternator

Well Ive finally taken the plunge & overcome my fear of fitting the lucas alternator that has been sitting on my workbench for the last 12 months.
(The last time I touched the wiring I burned out the entire front loom!! I was only connecting up the front sidelights but somehow for about 30 seconds or so I attached the red lighting wire directly to earth! Its amazing how bright the wiring loom can glow in that period of time!)
Today I had some time on my hands & decided that I would take off the generator & just trial-fit the alternator. I changed the generator bracket for the mini cooper one which fits the alternator, or did after I adjusted the angle by 10 degrees or so using a very big hammer & an engineers vice. (I bet we could start a completely different thread about engineers vices!)
Anyway the alternator fitted really well, I had forgotten though how little space there is to see where the spanners fit & to get your hands down between the fan & the pulley.
So I decided to go for it & rewire the regulator following the instructions in Barneys website.
This time I showed a lot more caution & isolated the battery after 1st pre-dialing two nines on my phone to save time when calling out the fire service. Then I moved the 2 wires on the voltage regulator as he directed also fitting the extra yellow wire to cope with the potential increase in amperage.
Amazingly everything worked perfectly & the alternator is charging the battery even on tickover.

Wonder if I should have fitted a smoke alarm in my garage!!!
Maybe I would be more suited to a pyromaniacs website!!!
Cheers
Colyn

colyn firth

Colyn - Just put a 10 amp in series with the earth lead on the battery when first connecting to a newly installed or reworked wiring harness. If something is not righ you wind up with a blown fuse instead of an incinerated harness. You can also substitute a low amperage battery charger in place of the battery to prove out a harness. Cheers - Dave
David DuBois

This thread was discussed on 03/11/2009

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