Stormtyler1984dolphin

Okay so we’ve found out that the alternator we have in there is NOT self regulating as the person that sold it to us said it was. And finding a self regulating one wire alternator has proven to be not that easy. So we bought a new alternator with the Plug that’s the same as our plug for the regulator. BUT my worry is that the old alternator wasn’t using the regulator for a reason??? Why would someone convert to a one wire self regulating alternator? So I’m wondering now if there’s a way to check the regulator before we go through all the BS of putting in the new alternator

This could potentially be helpful except I’m not sure we have an alternator light??? And also like I’ve said this replacement alternator that we put in is EXACTLY the same type that was previously in there with the EXACT same wiring......I would understand needing to have that wire if it had already existed but we just put everything back together the same way it was before we took it apart so in theory it should work??

I’m sorry I still don’t know what that means.....there’s one wire in the back on the alternator and that one wire goes to the battery........

I’m not exactly sure what that would mean I would have to check or do

Hm okay gotta wait for the rain to stop might wait until tomorrow to figure things out

Alright so with it running the center post reads about 12.1 and the auxiliary battery reads 15 (but we were still plugged into shore power) and the car battery side reads about 12.2 so does that mean it’s the alternator??

Oh actually another question. So the center post is for the alternator but there isn’t a wire that goes from the alternator to the post...should there be? The alternator is a Chevy one wire and the wire goes directly to the + lead on the car battery

Hahaha the previous owner put it in! It definitely adds character and people love it! Alrighty, it’s raining again here so once it stops we’ll fire it up and see what those spots are read. Thank you!

This is what it looks like under the hood if it’s helpful to anyone

Also we died on the side of the road at night lost all lights and we swapped the batteries to run the car off the house battery

I’m fairly sure it’s a diode. Is this what you’re talking about?

So upon a google search I realized that we do not have an external voltage regulator. The last alternator that was put it was a Chevy one wire alternator and when we replaced it we put the exact same type of Chevy one wire alternator back in. So no plug in the back of the alternator. So in theory it should work as it had worked for seemingly many years (the alternator looked like it had been there for a long while) and we hadn’t had any charging issues prior to this

Okay I’ll google that and check it out

Okay well do that tomorrow if it’s not raining too much!

Also Also we have a volt meter that’s how we knew the alternator wasn’t charging the battery. The battery was at 7 volts when we were dead on the side of the road. We have a new battery in but likely hood that it will also die eventually is very high.

Posting on here and hoping someone can help me somehow seeing as mechanics seemed to be confused about this as well. We have a 1984 Toyota Dolphin. We JUST replaced the alternator, not because it stopped working, but because it was rattling around from being so worn in where the bolts went through it that the holes were elliptical instead of round. And now the alternator isn’t feeding any power to our car battery. We replaced the wire from the back of the alternator thinking that was the issue but it did nothing. I think mechanics are confused by it having two batteries but they all keep saying that the “house” battery is charging while we’re running the engine but the car battery isn’t?? The only place the alternator attaches to is the car battery. And then there is a line that connects the two batteries together but how/ why would the house battery pull charge from the alternator and the car battery not? We had to replace the battery as we died in bumblefuck in the dark with no headlights in the rain.