Charge Light on Dim on a L185

[Dave_eng]

I am very happy you made good progress. Electrical gremlins are the hardest to find especially on an older machine which you have not owned from day one as a bit of corrosion on a ground, a high resistance connection somewhere else and suddenly you have a non functioning system.

Mechanical voltage regulators were going out of the market when I got interested in motor vehicles. However, I have a friend who is into restoring old British motorcycles and when he has trouble with their electrical systems he calls on me.

The regulators are actually quite ingenious with a counterclockwise wound coil overlaid with a clockwise wound coil to create a balance dependent upon current flow in each of the coils .

Even with the best of care these mechanical devices fail when it comes to modern reliability standards and converting them to a modern internally regulated alternator is the long term fix unless you want a non working show piece of a machine.

When you get to that point we can discuss the details.

Dave M7040

 

[OldGrayOwl]

What it turned out to be was a faulty slip connector on the field winding cable between the alternator and the regulator. When I would circuit check it, it would ring out fine (because I was pushing the probe onto the slip connector), but when it was installed, it wasn't making contact. I replaced the slip connector, and now I'm getting about 14. volts out.

I also noticed on the schematic for the Glowplug circuit, it is illustrated incorrectly. It is showing the two glowplugs to be in series, when in actually, they are in parallel (one contact on the end of each glowplug and the other end connecting to chassis).