My ~20 year old, rebuilt A133-75 finally failed about 5
years ago. A breaker yard spare went in. While it never
topped the volt meter scale to the exact point of the
previous one, it did manage to keep a full charge until last
weekend. Dash volt meter showing almost in the red
(12.6v’ish) with any accy turned on. The Fluke current probe
confirmed the problem: amperage maxed out at 20 amps,
regardless of load, even with engine revved a bit.
The real tell tale story here, IMO, is how well the alt
regulator performs at engine idle with some load (AC or
headlights) - you should see voltages on the dash gauge
remain near normal. Again IMO.
Yesterday, I installed yet another a breaker yard pull, a
Bosch reman that looked very new and clean. While this one
was capable of 45amps (briefly and only under certain
conditions as measured by the Fluke probe), the bloody
output voltage was sagging dreadfully under load (AC&
headlights on) to battery nominal voltage (12.6) or a bit
lower. Raising the RPMs off idle would barely lift the
voltage above 12.6v, again with full load. With accy’s all
turned off, voltage readings would eventually climb to 14.15
volts at idle.
IMO, this is the sort of Alternator behavior that can lead
you down the primrose path, until eventually it
self-destructs whilst struggling to charge a battery that
will, over time, ramp down to flat, given city driving with
some accy’s running. Also, this is the type of whimpy
charging pattern that leads to badly sulfated battery plates
over time. Unless you were to say, keep a ‘Battery Tender’
on it at all times when not driving, as I do now ;-). Truth
be told, I could prolly get by with this Bosch reman, for
quite awhile, given that I rarely drive the Series III XJ
anymore… the Battery Tender is therefore a way of life
for me now.
So, at my leisure, I’m chasing down a made in USA Transpo IL
219 (scarce) regulator, which is what was in the long lived
rebuild. It was matched to the diode stacks part # ILR 601
(all diodes tested perfectly - btw). Brushes still have
plenty of length…
XK’s Unlimited has an 80 amp regulator but I’m concerned
that it’s for the XJ40… OTOH, Alibaba has some Chinese
knock-offs and then there’s the made in Germany HUCO on
eBay. I will post back once I settle on a replacement
regulator. Oh and here’s hoping Sparx will chime in :))–
Ted Macklin/'85 XJ6SIII
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