A parcel arrived from India Tuesday morning, although it had been sent some time ago it had been held up in the Airport customs and not released till last Friday. They have been x-raying all the parcels and as my one contained wires it had been delayed. I have been waiting for various parts the main one being a new "AC/DC" alternator. The picture above is of the old one, this has four wires two go to two of the six coils, these are wired in series, while the other two wires go to the remaining four coils, these are wired in parallel two pairs of coils i.e. coil 1+3, and 2+4 giving two phases of an AC current. The windings of all the coils are made with the same gauge wire. The new heavy duty alternator is similar except it has the coils in different gauges of wire, thicker on the AC for more current but uses only 3 coil of the six, so the AC output is a very rough and uneven sine wave while the DC output is increased by a third. The DC output is used via the rectifier and regulator to power the side lamps,coil and charge the battery while the AC out put is used for the headlamp both dip and main beam after all lamps don't mind AC but batteries do. It does seem an over complicated system to me.I will be adding a separate album of motorbike pictures including all the ones I have taken while rebuilding the bike three times and some of my mates various old two wheeled junk.
Now that the bike is running correctly (thanks Royal Spares) it took only three quarters of an hour to fit the new alternator last night in the dark I will turn my attention to ROD the pick-up truck. I will have to go all over him and double check all the nuts and bolts,brake pipes etc as I have not touched him for so long. I will then do a mini MOT on him before I take him out for the proper one. I will then get brave and start doing longer and longer trips in him as he settles down to being used for the first time in many years. Keep checking in for an update on his progress.
