RA40 charge light weirdness

[EldarO]

barned, probably not what your looking for, but ill put it in on the off chance that it'll help...

http://www.toymods.net/forums/showthread.php?t=18916

Elmo.

[barned01]

yeah that's what i was looking at to get as far as i did....
i noticed the other side of the charge light went to a yellow wire, this yellow wire recieves 12v when ignition is on.
so with the yellow and white wire going to the regulator and the yellow wire provididng 12 volts at ignition, i would have thought this would work... but the fact the charge light is still on even if i don't connect it at the regulator is telling me it is getting a complete circuit from elsewhere in the system.
I am intreagued how chuck managed to bypass this.

i did find out something else though when randomly pulling things and frying things, and that was that choke/charge light relay, if i pull it out, the charge light acts as it should, ie turn on ignition, light is on, crank and run engine, light goes out.
but what have i done for this to occur, what significance is this relay? will my car blow up now?

[The Witzl]

barned..... i'd suggest to wire up the charge light idependantly from the original vehicle wiring circuits.

1/ Run a new wire from IGN at the key barrel or fuse box to the charge light
2/ Run a new wire from the other side of the charge light to "L" pin on the bosch alternator

That should fix it, and this is exactly what i did on my RA28, and it works perfectly. It's probably also a good idea to upgrade the wire size from the alternator to the battery terminal, as the current increase from stock to the Bosch unit is pretty big.

As for the leftover B-Y wire you have.... this is IGN, which the Bosch alternator doesn't need. Just tape it up

[blanky]

Witzl i hooked up my 85amp alt and found three wires energized the alternator from the original R&R and all three kept the light on so i might do as you suggested and run my own circuit. whats with the diode tho in the circuit that
thechuckster suggested . i think voltage needs to flow both ways one to energize and then back to equalize the voltage potential allowing the light to go out

[JadeEstevez]

I have seen heaps of people having trouble with this, So much easier to just run your own wiring for the charge light.

[GT1978]

Not having a diode and allowing the charge to flow in either direction also allows indication of over charging which is an issue I've had with these bosch alternators when the regulator fails. I'm still having issues with my charge light and haven't had time to continue fault finding but my next port of call would be to look for losses in voltage in the ingition circuit. ie after the battery line has passed through multiple wires and has fed multiple items in the ignition circuit having a reduced voltage (~12.5V) when it reaches the charge light compared with the feed directly from the alternator (~13-14.5V).

Glen