Hello all! It's been a while since my last posting, but now I'm back working on the bugs. A friend of mine has a 74 standard bug which has some electrical issues. A few months ago he burned most of the wires on the engine compartment as well as a stereo. Now I'm helping him replace the harness and found a few issues.
A PO installed an external regulator (he has a Bosch alternator), for some reason we don't know. And all the cables coming out of it are burned. I just removed the regulator and all of the wires in the engine compartment. Rewired everything and noticed the plastic brush holder with the D+ terminal was melted. Removed the alt. opened it and just as I suspected, the brushes were touching each other. I guess that was the source of all the problems. Replaced the brush holder with a new one and since the internal regulator looked fine (I don't know how to test it) decided to connect it and try. Here's where it get's funny. The gen light stays on even when the ignition is off (ie, no key) and the alt does not charge the battery. I connected a piece of wire directly from the D+ to the dash light and another one from the B+ to the battery and it still stays on. I guess there must be some short inside the alt. or maybe the internal regulator is bad. How do I test it? What else could be wrong?
TIA, Karls