Hello,
Again, I'm helping my friend with his SIII. He's found what looks like a small ignition coil between the front grille & the radiator. It looks original and has three fat leads leading to / from it. All are at least mainly brown in colour. No info in any of the books we have - possibly because it is a fairly late model.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know what this part is and what it does?
Cheers.
Phil
Split charge diode - for charging two batteries.
The can contains two diodes connected together at the alternator (A) terminal. The battery (B1, B2) terminals are connected to the two isolated batteries, one of which is usually the normal vehicle system.
Sounds like a Lucas "Blocking Diode" from a split charge system, the alternator would feed the centre terminal and the other two feed out to 2 separate batteries. A good system for isolating a winch battery from the vehicle electrics, the only real downsides being the limitation of a 60A alternator (the diode's power handling capability) and the voltage drop across the diodes (typically 0.8 to 1.4 volts) causing the batteries to only charge to the lower voltage and hence not a full charge. This was a situation that could be worked around though, by modifying the alternator to become "battery sensed" instead of "machine sensed", so that the alternator would sense the battery voltage direct ( instead of its own internal volts) and run at a slightly higher internal voltage to compensate for the drop across the diodes. This would cause the ignition light to be seen glowing very dimly at night, due to the voltage difference across it (0.8 to 1.4 volts), easily cured by the addition of a diode in the ignition light connection at the alternator. Assuming it is indeed a blocking diode, new it would have cost in the region of £45 about 6 or 7 years ago. I'm led to believe that the only user of them in any quantity was the AA. Badger.
Anti Rambler device, it's connected to the ignition leads and zaps them as they touch the grill. Oh, actually only worked on the metal SIIa grills :)
Interesting...
My 110 is Ex AA and came fitted with an 8274. It only has a single battery though.
I wonder why they never fitted dual batteries? It does have a hand throttle fitted in the passenger footwell though, they must have just upped the engine speed while winching. Most likely it wasn't used that often too.
Thanks,
That seems to have cleared that one up!
Phil
You got just the one then?
It reminded me of this ....
There will be others....
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