Mrmerlin

OK can you say this in laymans terms What is a AL325X alternator?
I am having problems with my charging system it is a 84 auto with a Paris Rhone, a brand new BIG battery and it appears that the brushes have been changed out (no by me).
Anyway the battery is dripping electrolyte out of the vent tube and from the voltage readings it is making about 14.8 volts at idle so it definitly over charging the system.
I will go back and do some soldering to the flexible ends of the ground wires block to chassis and the battery ground to chassis. as from your earlier post it might be causing the alternator to think its not charging enough

the flyin' scotsman

Its perhaps a regulation issue Stan..............the alternator is not recognising the batt. is at full charge.

Alan

Again - the alternator doesn't recognize anything about the battery condition - it just tries to maintain its output voltage setting - in this case one that is too high... only the alternator can be at fault for this.. ground really doesn't matter (it can create noise but not a higher steady state voltage). The regulator checks alternator case to B+ output terminal - all self contained.

Alternators like ours are very simplistic charging systems. Some other vehicles have higher set points for the voltage regulators due to losses in their systems (related to wiring sizes mainly). Some even have more compliacted regulators with remote voltage sensing - we don't.

Alan

Garth S

The alt I upgraded to is also a Paris-Rhone/marchall - the one that was introduced in '82 ( smaller case than my original, and has the plastic rear cover vs. a metal one: most likely, the "AL325" is the one you now have on the '84

Your alt may have a shorted field coil as did mine - but IMO, that is extremely rare: more likely, you have a failed regulator or plate diode failed closed: the latter allows AC to reach the battery, creating an overcharge/overheat situation. Flip your meter to volts AC when running to see if there is an 'impure' DC feed to the batt. Regardless, it sounds like an alt issue as Alan suggests.

Mrmerlin

Garth, Thanks for the clarification... So here is what i did I removed both of the major ground wires and soldered the ends with a torch and some acid core solder then buffed them. Installed them . I also purchased a new regulator and from your other post followed your advise and disassembled the alternator, I am glad i did as it was filled with all kinds of dirt and stones especially filling the armature slots, so its all cleaned out and now with the new reg its showing a charge of 14.2 at idle with the lights on idle 13.6 . I think this is more in line with the correct voltage for this sytem. Thanks for your thoughts , Stan