Alternator mystery

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charlielucky
Posts: 90
Joined: Wed Oct 14, 2020 4:57 am
Your car is a: Fiat 124 2000 C3 1981 model

Alternator mystery

Post by charlielucky »

Hi, I love my fiat 2000 but sometimes...... My battery is not getting charged by the Alternator, so at first I thought I would have to replace it. On closer inspection, one of the wires with the plastic slip on connector was not connected at all. I thought this would solve the problem so I set up my multimeter to test the battery while running the car. The motor started behaving like an old stationary engine with a governor. At first I thought I must have disconnected a wire or something by accident. Just to be sure I disconnected the wire from the Alternator and low and behold the motor ran beautifully. Any idea what is going on? The wire in question runs into the wiring harness so I have no idea where it goes.

Charles
18Fiatsandcounting
Posts: 3780
Joined: Fri Mar 15, 2019 11:23 pm
Your car is a: 1969 and 1971 124 spiders
Location: San Francisco Bay Area

Re: Alternator mystery

Post by 18Fiatsandcounting »

The wire to energize the alternator field circuit should be a black/violet wire. Is that what you connected? It goes to the battery indicator light in the tachometer.

One possibility is that your battery is really weak and so the alternator is having to work really hard to charge the battery, but I would think this would only lower the idle speed a bit, not cause it to run poorly.

-Bryan
charlielucky
Posts: 90
Joined: Wed Oct 14, 2020 4:57 am
Your car is a: Fiat 124 2000 C3 1981 model

Re: Alternator mystery

Post by charlielucky »

Hi, yes the wire in question is the black/violet. It is hard to get a good look at the back of the alternator so I'm not sure if there is another terminal to attache the wire. The Alternator is a Bosch 14V 65A 21 model. 0120489823824.
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