• Hey Guest!
    British Car Forum has been supporting enthusiasts for over 25 years by providing a great place to share our love for British cars. You can support our efforts by upgrading your membership for less than the dues of most car clubs. There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Upgraded members don't see this banner, nor will you see the Google ads that appear on the site.)
Tips
Tips

TR6 MY alternator died TR6

Share this page

hondo402000

hondo402000

Darth Vader
Offline
I purchased a new uprated alternator maybe 3 years ago, the one that goes on the ford fiesta, 200 and some odd dollers, worked fine before I rewired my car, I have 400 miles on my new engine and wiring harness and now the ignition light came on and stayed on, I checked voltage at the batter when car is running and 12 volts. check it at the alternator and 12 volts, when I wired the alternator up I had one Brown white wire I didnt know where it went, had a forum member help out, could it be it just died? purchase a new one or have this one checked out and repaired?

Hondo
 
Probably just died, but I'd check the wiring near the alternator for any signs of damage or overheating. That big spade quick connect is really marginal for this application, IMO, I've seen several of them get hot and not make good connection.

I don't understand about the brown/white wire, though. NW should only be on the earlier cars with ammeters, and it goes to the main alternator output terminals.

You should also have a small brown or brown/red that goes to the terminal off by itself (marked only "+" on my Bosch), and a brown/yellow that goes to the smaller tab within the 3 terminal connector.
 

Attachments

  • 26727.jpg
    26727.jpg
    24.5 KB · Views: 172
PS, be sure to get a warranty this time. On the wife's Toyota, we went throughs something like 5 rebuilt alternators in 6 months before finding one that lasted.
 
Hi,

If you didn't replace it yet, check the brushes. I have a bosch from the ford fiesta and have gone through a few brushes, but the alternator itself has always been good. The brushes are cheap, 10 bucks or so, and dot difficult to replace.

Cheers
 
sorry, I have a 71 which has the amp meter, I also ran a parallel brown white form the alternator to the amp gauge and then a brown from the amp to the starter, and made a shunt across the back of the amp meter per dan masters, so the amp meter wouldnt take the whole load thru the meter.

I will check the wires but didnt notice any burnt wires

thanks
Hondo
 
Ok got a good one for the electrical gurus, I took the brown yellow wire off the terminal thats next to the 2 big spades in the pic above, and I have a brown wire on the plus terminal that one thats standing alone, I touched the brown yellow to the plus, there was a spark and I heard a click from inside the dash, I checked the fuses, none blown, I turned on the ignition switch, light comes on, started the car, light goes off and I checked the battery with the car running and now the alternator is charging, usually I do something like that and smoke pours out, so how did I fix it?

Hondo
 
Beats me, unless perhaps there was a bad connection at the alternator and you fixed it by un/re plugging the wires.

Touching the brown/yellow to the brown shouldn't do anything except light the lamp on the dash, and perhaps pass just a bit of current back into the igntion circuit (through the warning light bulb). If you have some sort of ignition-controlled relay, that would probably explain the click. But I didn't entirely follow all the modifications you've made, so perhaps I'm overlooking something.
 
no modifications now back to the original harness, except for adding a parallel wire to the amp meter to handle the uprated alternator

Hondo
 
Hondo, do you have an alternator shop near you that rebuilds units? You may have a brush or voltage regulator problem with the low output and they can probably replace the regulator or brushes for you, as this is a commonly used alternator.
 
Back
Top