Need some electrical help with my ‘68 Plymouth Valiant 100
It looked like this when it was new:
An original, adjustable mechanical voltage regulator looks like this:
Older regulators are "mechanical," because they use sets of physical magnetic coils and electrical contacts, which move, in order to rapidly turn the alternator field coils on and off, which regulates the overall average voltage, but which creates a voltage that varies from one millisecond to another.
They work fine in their original applications, but, since they involve physical objects with mass moving through space, are inherently prone to wear and ultimate failure.
Modern regulators are "electronic" or "solid state," and have no moving parts.
They work through electronic components, provide smoother regulation, are less likely to fail (provided they are made well), and are cheaper to manufacture in the modern era.
Yours is mechanical and could be bad. It could also be fine. One way of testing it is to replace it with one that works. (In the old days, these were "toolbox items" at the junkyard – things that you'd throw into your toolbox, and, in a sort of a "Don't ask, don't tell" exchange, you wouldn't cop to having them, and the yard owner wouldn't care that you took them. Every single car had one, and any sensible person would replace a bad one with a new one, so they had very little value, but were generally useful if you needed to troubleshoot a problem like yours.).
Nowadays, if you don't have one, you'd need to buy one for fifty bucks, unless you've got a buddy with a good-running MoPar, in which case you could just swap them out and see whether your problem goes away.
You can also just pull each one out and test continuity with an ohmmeter. There should be no resistance.
– Eric
edit: Damn. Beat me to it by one minute. Guess I have to get up earlier.
You have an original, non-adjustable, mechanical voltage regulator:
It looked like this when it was new:
An original, adjustable mechanical voltage regulator looks like this:
Older regulators are "mechanical," because they use sets of physical magnetic coils and electrical contacts, which move, in order to rapidly turn the alternator field coils on and off, which regulates the overall average voltage, but which creates a voltage that varies from one millisecond to another.
They work fine in their original applications, but, since they involve physical objects with mass moving through space, are inherently prone to wear and ultimate failure.
Modern regulators are "electronic" or "solid state," and have no moving parts.
They work through electronic components, provide smoother regulation, are less likely to fail (provided they are made well), and are cheaper to manufacture in the modern era.
Yours is mechanical and could be bad. It could also be fine. One way of testing it is to replace it with one that works. (In the old days, these were "toolbox items" at the junkyard – things that you'd throw into your toolbox, and, in a sort of a "Don't ask, don't tell" exchange, you wouldn't cop to having them, and the yard owner wouldn't care that you took them. Every single car had one, and any sensible person would replace a bad one with a new one, so they had very little value, but were generally useful if you needed to troubleshoot a problem like yours.).
Nowadays, if you don't have one, you'd need to buy one for fifty bucks, unless you've got a buddy with a good-running MoPar, in which case you could just swap them out and see whether your problem goes away.
If they're blown, the inside of the glass is black and the little wire thingy is melted.
You can also just pull each one out and test continuity with an ohmmeter. There should be no resistance.
– Eric
edit: Damn. Beat me to it by one minute. Guess I have to get up earlier.