Then back to the alternator, 1 came, wrong pulley, 1 came, didn't work, however in retrospect it may have worked & it may have been my error. I have a small dash panel I made up with a few switches & a neon light, I now suspect the neon light is not enough to drop the voltage on the exciter wire to get the alternator to charge, a bit light if you fit a LED ignition light you still need to be over 5W to make it work. I only say this as the 3rd alternator also didn't work until I added an additional 5W bulb into the circuit.
Anyway as I couldn't get a genuine bracket I was all against cutting up the one I had so I manage to just make a couple of brackets, bolt them to the existing alternator bracket, swap the pulleys over between the 2 alternators & I now have a good working system, I'm seeing 13.6V on the LED gauge on the dash.
At the moment it's all just bolted up & appears to be okay, my though is if it does move then all I'll do is put a couple of tack welds between the old & the new brackets so they could be ground off if needed.
The last one is the coil, after fitting the alternator i took it for a good run, well 16 miles or so, when I got back I started to take off the old alternator regulator/rectifier & tidy up the wiring, I noticed that the coil was so hot it was untouchable, I let it cool down & then pulled it out it is a CAMBIARE VE520021 which appears to be a ballast coil, there is no resistor anywhere near it or there wasn't when I stripped out all the wiring, bo I'm wondering if on the loom the original wire was a high resistance wire. I had wondered as the coil has a feed from the starter motor which gives the coil 12V whilst cranking, then presumably when you come off the key it drops to 9V. So I've ordered a ballast resistor, it was either that or replace the coil which was a lot more expensive
Job that never got finished was fitting the radiator overflow, picked up one of the ones I fitted to the 3 MEV's I built, just the black aluminium ones,
Only thing you have to remember with them is to drill the cap as they come with a rubber seal, mounted that below the expansion tank, not sure it is pushing water past the cap, but if it is then at least now it's being captured & will get an option to be pulled back.
Went out for a run to make sure the ballast was working correctly, it seemed a great success no more cutting out at junctions, seemed smoother, it did seem a little down on power but when you've only got 50 I wasn't sure if it was mw not used to it. All was well for about the first 10 miles, then I pulled up to take a picture of some fly tipping on a lane which was half blocking it, it was happy to sit at idle, I was feeling confident I'd fixed the issue. Set off again but when I got to the next junction it cut out & wouldn't restart, eventually giving it around 3/4 choke got it to start again, then a combination of playing with the choke & the accelerator I could get enough power to get it moving again, but no acceleration. I was about 5 miles from home but managed to limp back.
Figured it had to be the carb, lifted the top off to be greeted with
Normally I take carbs etc. to a local guy about 5 miles away, so took it off & drove over only to find the place all locked up & the sign above the door gone, looks like he's packed up which is a real shame. So I joined a Weber group on Faecesbook & found another guy who specialises in them about 20 miles away, so dropped it off yesterday, unfortunately he's just about to go on holiday for 2 weeks but at least it will be done properly, ultrasonic cleaned etc, felt it was best to let somebody who knew what they were doing rather than my hamfisted attempts.
