1970 Buick Wildcat, stock ignition, wiring, engine, etc. I got my Wildcat back together after a mild tear down of the engine compartment (cleaning, paint, gaskets, seals, etc.), which included replacing all the wiring following the engine block to starter, alternator, coil, AC, oil, and water sensors. I replaced the alternator. I spliced new-to-old wire using crush connectors followed by solder and protected by shrink tubing with the whole affair wrapped in tape and protected with high temperature corrugated loom. All wire is automotive grade GXL/SXL appropriately sized. Replaced packard connectors. Crimped carefully and soldered. Continuity verified. Resistance wire (ignition and gen light) is intact. I also added VDO voltmeter, oil pressure and water temperature gauges. The voltmeter is connected to the cig lighter feed. All bolt-to-metal faces were cleared of paint for continuity, at least the ones I painted and re-attached. Prior to the refurb I had no way to observe system voltage and at idle the 'gen' light would sometimes glow dimly and go out with RPM. No worries. After getting everything back together and the usual stuff worked out and the engine running smoothly I noticed that my volt gauge was occasionally running up to 15.5-ish volts. I could bring this down into the 13-14V range by running the headlights or blower. I replaced the voltage regulator (solid state) and checked ground connection. I fired up the car and the voltage shot up to 16V immediately. I cut off the car and ran a secondary ground, star-type, directly to the regulator and the alternator just to make sure there was nothing going on there. I also have several braided ground straps between the block, firewall, and battery. I verified continuity with a handheld digital multimeter. Still shooting up to 16V according to the dash gauge, which can be brought under control by running the fan and headlights. Sometimes turning the blower and headlight off will leave the voltage in a good range but a bump of the RPM will cause the voltage to go back up. The "gen" light does not activate during high voltage conditions. No "gen" light at idle now. Battery age is unknown though showing just over 12V on the VDO gauge with the ignition in the ACC position. Before I start going point-to-point doing continuity checks, pulling the refurb alternator and taking it to AZ for testing, battery check, etc. does anyone have any suggestions or ideas what might be going on that could trim some time off of the trouble shooting activities? Thanks!!
Regulators these days are crap. I'd rather pull an oe off a wrecking yard car & use it than buy a new one.I cant find a brand I trust to sell anymore.
No (not yet), everything so far has been off the gauge. Well, at this point I just want to know if the regulator is the issue. I was seeing the same behavior with the last one. I might be really unlucky with two bad ones in a row or maybe there is something that is causing the regulators to fail.
Take your voltage reading with your digital meter and see what the true voltage is. Dash meters are not all that reliable. If the reading is accurate the problem is with the regulator. Grounds will affect low voltage conditions but not raise the voltage as long as the regulator is good.
With the car running take a quick reading from batt+ to ground and alternator charging supply out to ground. They should be about the same if not and you still have out connected like it cane from the factory. your batt+ wire is likely losing connection between the starter and battery. I just had the same issue with my c10 same charging setup... ---------- Post added at 11:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:58 PM ---------- Losing this connecting will cause the alternator to"full- field" and screw up the regulator.
What brand voltage regs are you getting?I've had trouble with AC Delco.Also you should use a hand held volt meter at the Alt output and at the battery.14.3 to 15.3 are acceptable range.
I replaced all of these so perhaps a terminal crimp didn't hold, wire melted, screw vibrated loose, or something. I'll recheck everything, especially at the starter. Standard Motor Products VR103. Unfortunately I had some issues come up today that kept from getting the DMM to the car. I will check all the terminal voltages and report back.
Unfortunately circumstances didn't let me get back to this until recently but after checking continuity, resistor wire, the alternator, adding grounds, etc. on a whim I replaced the already new voltage regulator with another SM VR103. This largely fixed the problem. I didn't realize that Standard Motor was producing actual vibrating points regulators until I popped the lid. I think I'll purchase a solid state regulator and put the old cap on it. I don't have a lot of faith in the reliability of the mechanicals, at least compared to a solid state version. I have to admit this is first time I've seen what I take to be a mechanical PWM device. The one thing the system still does is that when the car is idling (not on the fast idle either) the gen light flashes a little bit and the system voltage shoots up north of 16 volts. The alternator seems a little noisy too but maybe this is just relative to the overall engine noise level at higher RPM. If it is on fast idle or driving the voltage looks pretty steady, ~ 14.5V per the VDO gauge (tied into the same line as the radio) and independent of RPM (>1000 RPM). Is the regulator attempting to regulate current moreso than voltage? It almost seems like it's trying to provide the current demand by increasing the system voltage at low RPM, but on the other hand I thought it was supposed to draw the balance from the battery rather than go wide open on the field current. On the last regulator the voltage was always high unless I put the system under load (blower, lights, whatever). At this point I'm not sure what to do with it. For (yet another) $30 or so I can get the Wells solid state regulator and see if this settles things down or just go with it as is.
The points style reg is what it came with.They used them up until 71 when they went to internal regulators.Like I said before,they are a crap-shoot to find a good one,Wells used to be good,don't know if they still are.
I had replaced the regulator that was in the car when I got it with a new Standard Motor regulator. I had just assumed that the replacement was a solid state based [external] regulator. It didn't occur to me that people were still making the mechanical version but that does explain the high cost. Wells has solid state versions and I'll give that a shot. They are less than half the cost of the mechanical ones.
my '72 gs had the mechanical points external regulator. car was build in oct 1971. A few years later, I did remove the external reg and swapped the alternator out for one with an internal regulator.
You can get a Wells/Airtex points unit for $10.21 an some others as cheap as 4-5 dollars at Rockauto.com.
