| Now the rest of the story - about alternators [message #228683] |
Wed, 06 November 2013 17:48  |
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Matt Colie
Messages: 8547
Registered: March 2007
Location: S.E. Michigan
Karma:
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Senior Member |
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If you get an alternator serviced or buy parts on your own, make sure that the regulator is one that is a replacement for the Delco number 1116387. That number had been discontinued for years, but replacements from Delco and others are out there.
Some of you may remember that I got my alternator serviced in Baton Rouge on the way to Dothan. The regulator went bad. This neat guy in Baton Rouge broke it down (I had taken it out in his driveway), checked the original regulator and while it sort of worked (then) it got real hot real fast. While he was looking at that regulator, he mumbled something about it being one for external excitation. It now occurs to me that he might have meant external sensing. The one he put in was not.
I put it back in and got 13.4 in the system right away and it built to 13.6. (Beats nothing by a bunch.) That was the best we ever saw for the rest of the summer. In case you haven't grabbed that, you can charge the house bank from half gone to full charge with 13.6, but it will take you DAYS to do in. It will not happen in a normal driving day of something like 8 hours. This just one reason why a PD92xx works so well.
Well, I put in the Chinese part that I got somewhere this afternoon, and now it fires up at 14.4. Much the betterer. We put more hours on the APU this season than we had in the three prior and most of that was just to charge the house bank. I'm looking to not do that again this next season.
Speaking of regulators, I have an old three battery coach. During a hot weekend of dry camping, the APU battery got so depleted that it would not crank the monster. So, I screwed in the jumper I put in the system just for such eventualities and got the APU battery back up and just kept an eye on it from then on. I finally got to do the complete and through diagnostic on it yesterday. That expensive little Prestolite rectifier/regulator had gone out, not completely, but not enough left to do any good. It took some persistence to catch it failing... Fortunately, there was one on the other BF (4kW Onan) I was given.
Good news, that one is good.
Bad news, it is the same part (exactly) that I have failed on two out of three Kohler engine small tractors.
I can buy a replacement by part number for 109$us.
I can buy something that looks like the old one for 45+$ on E-bay.
I can buy something that does the same thing but is a very different package for 20$.
Guess which I'm going to do.
Those were the two things that I really I wanted to get done before I brought Chaumière in for the winter's work.
Matt
Matt & Mary Colie - Chaumière -'73 Glacier 23 - Members GMCMI, GMCGL, GMCES
Electronically Controlled Quiet Engine Cooling Fan with OE Rear Drum Brakes with Applied Control Arms
SE Michigan - Near DTW - Twixt A2 and Detroit
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