I am putting a 100 amp 1 wire alt (Powermaster) in my RS. Originally, this car was set up for an external voltage regulator (had the two wire harness on the top of the alt).

One wire operation sounds great to me (and I'm willing to rely on the internal voltage regulator even if I do have to rev the engine a bit at startup to kick the alternator into charging mode). Trouble is, I hear you need to disable the old external voltage regulator by unplugging the wiring harness to it. That seems easy enough except...

I cannot for the life of me tell which canister is the voltage regulator.

Wiring diagrams say I should have an orange, blue, white and brown wire coming from it, but nothing in my engine compartment/wiring looks like that. I've posted some pics. There is a cluster of 3 Delco-Remy canisters on a mounting plate that is in turn mounted under the driver side fender just rear of the radiator support. These all look identical (no markings/etc.). Is this some massive early voltage regulator or a multi-function beast I've never heard of before? I assume one of them might be the headlight door relay, but don't know for sure.

The last pic I posted is of the canister I *think* might be the regulator (since it has the orange power wire from the fused + link). Attached Thumbnails


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Also posted this as a reply to another thread, but didn't know if it would be lost/buried that way. So, I'm posting again here in it's own thread. Sorry for the double post.
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Since your year RS has electric headlight doors, those relays under the fender must be for them. What's next to the horn relay on the radiator core support (between it and the radiator), anything? And can you show a picture of your alternator?

 

The only thing on the radiator support is the horn relay. Posting a pic of that and the old alt. I didn't look real close at the old alt connections, but I remember that it wasn't a blue/white wire. Perhaps it was only using the upper alt connector to power the 'generator' light in the dash cluster, and a previous owner already removed the external voltage regulator? The white wire coming from the alt was spliced into a brown wire coming from the firewall wiring harness. Maybe that was for the idiot light.

I've since added a ammeter (orange wire on the horn relay, and another on the + batt junction on the passenger side) so didn't need that idiot light anyway.

So, maybe I'm good to go then?

 

Yep, your charging system has been converted over to an internal regulator type alternator. An external regulated alternator has a square 2-prong plug that goes into the back.

 

Alrighty, I'm gonna press forward then. Thanks!

On another note, I've been taking pics of the entire process and I wanted to do a build thread. Any advice there?

 

Yeah, make sure you get the pics in focus!
I like to take pictures of everything I'm working on as well. Sometimes it's good to have for reference, pictures remember better than my brain does.

 

Hey, at least I got a couple of in-focus pics out of the 8 or so I posted in this thread. LOL

OK, I'm gonna start a build thread somewhere on this site, and start loading all the pics I've got (along with some colorful narrative).