Outer Limits 4x4 Board

I've installed a Vt Commodore alternator in my Rangie (chev desiel) and are just wondering about the wring on it.
"L" goes to the idiot light
"S" i have read can be paralleled to the battery charge wire and gives a signal to the alternator to tell it to charge or something like that.
i did this and it was charging at something like 13.4v, alls good. But when i turned it of there was an alternate ticking noise coming from the alternator and then a sort of hot wiring smell.
Can anybody shed any light on whats wrong or if i've wired it wrong.

You will have to be much more specific about what VT alternator you are running.....
V6, 5.0, LS1, 90a, 100a, 120a or 140a??
Bosch or Mitsubishi?

V6. 100A, i think bosch - will have to look in the morning

its Bosch. Can anybody help me out on this one?

that charge rate is awfully low aswell should be around the 14-14.5 mark, also is the thick wire that goes from ur alt to the battery toast? it should be a nice copper colour.

6.5 rangie wrote:I've installed a Vt Commodore alternator in my Rangie (chev desiel) and are just wondering about the wring on it.
"L" goes to the idiot light
"S" i have read can be paralleled to the battery charge wire and gives a signal to the alternator to tell it to charge or something like that.
i did this and it was charging at something like 13.4v, alls good. But when i turned it of there was an alternate ticking noise coming from the alternator and then a sort of hot wiring smell.
Can anybody shed any light on whats wrong or if i've wired it wrong.

I posted a wiring diagram for a typical bosch alternator in this thread:

http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/PHP_Modul ... hp?t=86049

It doesn't sound like you've wired it wrong to me. Do you have good earth at the alternator? Is the charge light behaving normally ie lights up when you turn on the ignition, goes off when the alternator starts spinning?

When the engine is running, can you measure voltage between the battery -ve terminal and the alternator body? They should both be grounded hence read zero volts, but if you have bad ground there could be a voltage reading.

Also, is this a "known to be good" alternator or a second hand one of unknown condition?

Okay i think i've fried something. Alternator light doesn't come on at all, have tested the cable going up to the light and with the ignition turned on (not running) it has around 11v (battery a bit low at the time) but no light.
At some stage i may have swapped the "L and S" wires around accidently so this would have damaged the regulater i guess.
As i said it makes an alternate ticking noise when turned off and a cooked smell, so guessing i'm due for a new reg now.

The regulators themselves are pretty generic, and can be swapped in from other bosch alternators. It shouldn't be tooo hard to find one.

Anyway of testing them, have a couple laying around thats all?

go out and buy a re60 or re72 reg depending on lateness of your alt
and bobs ya uncle fixed reg if you have it wired correctly
also vt alts are prone to crackin stator wires to the rectifer so you may also have a crook alternator the only way to check that is to pull it apart and test the rectifer
a auto elec is your freind for this

stupid me had the wires around the wrong way, all working now except for my alt light stays on, bugger