That green car is almost too nice to drive in the salt. I don't know if its possible to totally protect it even with careful repainting and something like Waxoyl in the places that can't be painted.
@Tooljunkie @toolmanmike Wagoneer's alternator is putting out proper power now.
View attachment 1715285325 Not sure what I did to fix it.
View attachment 1715285326
When I got to the garage I started with the Barracuda since I had to move it. Regulator is definately not working after start up. Giving it a bit of gas (1500-1800 rpm) and it would go to 17 Volts at the regulator's connector. After a few minutes it seems to cut off around 15 Volts. That's measured across regulator so that's the voltage its seeing inside. Not seeing any voltage drops between the regulator housing and the battery neg.
View attachment 1715285327 I have another regulator but they're bloody expensive to be going through every year or so.
On the Wagoneer the first things I did was put the battery on the fancy charger. Then adjusted the belt tension and then retorque all of the bracket bolts through the water pump. That needed to be done anyway since I erred on the safe side yesterday.
Not satisfied with that, I thought it would be worth checking resistance in the alternator wires. Field (some call exciter) had 15.2 ohms which is about right and the others were 1/2 Ohm or less.
Fired it up and started checking current at the battery negative (nothing not sure why) and then went back to the same method I used the other day; measuring at the alternator out. Kept adding load and Voltage stayed the same.
27.4 Amps, 14.3 V at 680 rrpm with heater fan on max and headlights.
I should be happy but instead I'm kicking myself for not seperating out the testing. Now i don't know if it was the belt tension, the battery too low to get the field juiced up, or a poor connection that I temporarily 'fixed'.:rolleyes:
View attachment 1715285328
It was nice to drive home and not have the power switch over to battery everytime I came to a stop. :)