HA dynamo to chevette alternator

[tritonofnor]

Hi Guys.

Having got the new gearbox in and the car back on the road, I'm planning to upgrade the charging system to an alternator from the original C40 type dynamo. I have done this type of conversion before on a Morris 1300, with a lucas ACR, but this time I have a Delco type alternator from a chevette (I think) with four connectors on the rear - two large spades marked + and -, and two small spades marked ind and bat. On the voltage regulator box I have two fat wires and two thin ones. Am I correct in thinking that to do the conversion I need to do the following:

At the regulator - join the two thicker wires. Disconnect and separate/tape up the two thin wires.
At the dynamo end of the loom, run the thin wire to the "ind" terminal on the alternator. Connect the large terminal to the large + terminal. Run a new cable from the "bat" terminal to the positive side of the starter solenoid.

Can anybody confirm that this is correct? I don't want to start cutting and splicing cables until I'm sure I've got the right method sorted out in my head!!

Thanks in advance!

Ian

[thomas]

It sounds about right to me, yes.

I didn't find it was necessary to join any heavy current carrying cables, I found that there was already a thick brown wire with a large spade connection running from the solenoid's battery side to the reg-rectifier, which spade fits nicely onto the + output terminal on the delco alternator so simply had to take this down to the alternator, this is a bare spade so I used some self-amalgamating tape to insulate it from accidental contact with the alternator body, around the terminal itself. Some Chevettes may have had round output terminal than spade.

All the little loom around and between the dynamo and reg-rect - the now redundant heavy brown/yellow cable which ran from reg-rect to dynamo plus a thin brown/green wire which was part of the warning light circuit between dynamo and reg-rect - can be thrown away. I think you want only to keep, possibly extend, the thin brown/yellow wire, currently at the reg-rect, for your 'ind' terminal on the alternator. The Delco alternator needs a separate sense wire to operate, that is at its 'bat' terminal, which is best ran separately back to the battery side of the soleniod as you suggested above.

Only issue I see is this convenient brown cable might be a bit under-rated, the dynamo max outut current was about 22 amps and the delco alternators are usually 35 or 45 amp; I've had no issues with that but will in due course replace it, I recall giving up looking for jumbo size spade connectors to fit the large output terminal on the alternator, so re-using the old brown cable with the spade on already became necessary. In all cases make sure theres no fouling of your main output lead or the bat sense wire, which are both always live off the solenoid, avoid the hot exhaust manifold and the clutch cable flexing/moving also could potentially chafe.

There's a related thread here: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=17559&start=10#p65456

I'm working from memory, and colours of wires refer to an HB, should be much the same I hope.