Dead alternator?

Errr, no. And if you bothered to read what you replied to, you'll see it mentions hydroelastic suspension on minis...

Which is my experience having had it on a mid 70's mini and not on an early 80's.

Dave Plowman (News) wrote: [...]

Keeping the throttle buried and controlling the understeer by left foot braking works well; it's even better with 100 bhp of course ;-)

Chris

I dunno what fantasy land you live in but you're wrong.

The vans had a longer wheelbase thus less oversteer tendencies.

Indeed, as did the Countryman/Traveller.

That's one of the reasons why I chose a Traveller as the basis for a car I built for my then wife. I dropped an MG 1100 lump into it, with twin SU's and the diff ratio of an "S".

It was potentially a 100 mph Mini, but with the original drum brakes. At speed, it was a case of looking for avoidance, rather than stopping...

Chris

talking of alternators,

I have a cold start related problem on my alternator

basically first thing in the morning, I find that if I accelerate hard, the headlamps become brighter briefly, If I then rapidly decelerate, then the headlamps dim briefly.

I have repeated this exercise with a voltmeter across the battery. With hard sudden rvving of the engine, the alternator briefly outputs 16V before settling to 14.5V. If I am racing the engine, if I take my foot off the accelerator suddenly, the voltage can drop to 11.5V momentarily.

Once I have driven a few miles and the alternator has warmed up, the overcharging/undercharing briefly stops.

This clearly points to an alternator problem, can I get away with changing the regulator/brush assembly or is there a more serious fault on the alternator?

A new regulator/brush assembly is around 20 quid whereas a new alternator is

Regards

Stephen

and isn't the diode pack actually part of the regulator?

No.

Is it (out of interest) that black semi-circular plastic covered part at the lower end of the alternator, opposite the pulley?

The bit that has (most of?) the electrical terminals on it?

Or are you saying it's not part of the alternator at all Duncan?

All the best ..

T i m

Worse! They're typically press-fit and only _exactly_ the right diode will fit. These are often available through the auto-sparks trade, but not from RS. Usually the exchange item is the whole bridge though, not individual diodes. If it's the three small diodes feeding the regulator, then these are an easy fix but rarely fail anyway.

OTOH, they're only half-a-dozen high current diodes. If you want to, you can build your own bridge & bracket and bolt it anywhere convenient. Or pick any suitable rectifier from another alternator. If you've something like an old Lucas ACR (physically big diode stack and unreliable with it) a popular tweak was to swap something Bosch into there instead.

PS - If one was to build a kitcar / convert a dynamo, what's the best donor car for a simple reliable alternator these days?

Was it supposed to be so foul? I've heard that this was some sort of long-term bacterial action, and that adding a bit of cedar oil when filling them stopped it going "off".

I'd always though Conor was older too. Hydrolastic Minis were a short-lived aberration, but I certainly remember them.

Only if it's a serpentine belt.

I could swap an alternator in half an hour on my Lancia Montecarlo, and that had the worst access to it ever.

With respect, I'm not sure many would consider a Lancia Montecarlo to be a "modern car"...

Chris

No, it was dreadful stuff right out of the can!

For some values of short-lived perhaps.

It was used for seven years.

Chris

On at least some cars they make things easier. No hassle tensioning the V belt. Some can be pretty difficult to get right.

Ok and understood.

Hmm, had I had to pay the £115 as first feared I might have considered that. I've even got some heavy stud mounted diodes in the workshop ..

Oooh, good question. The only kitcar I've ever built is this Ranger and it used the std MKII Scrote jobby. I'll ask my garage mate what he thinks might make a good / easy candidate when I pick up my re-sprayed CB250 rims .. ;-)

All the best ..

T i m

The regulator may or may not be potted into the same lump, but it's electrcally seperate , and in most alternators mechanically seperate from the diode pack.