Friday, August 1, 2014


I picked up the alternator from the rebuilder and Saturday afternoon Aug 2, I installed it in the Plymouth. I started the Plymouth with 2 batteries, at first it showed a charge but when I turned it off and back on again it showed discharge. I didn't know what to do but the alternator was still not working. Sunday I took the alternator out of the Plymouth. I took the alternator back to the rebuilder Monday. He was not happy with me but he put it on the tester and showed me that it was still working fine. He said the problem is in the locomotive. I put the alternator and VR back in the Plymouth. I knew that there had to be 12 volts applied to the regulator to excite the alternator. The wire for that was connected to the ACC (accessory) terminal on the ignition switch. That’s the way it was wired on the old switch. I thought that might be bad and so I moved the exciter wire from ACC to the IGN (ignition) terminal on the switch. Now it shows charging on the ammeter. So the new ignition switch was bad. I dont need the ACC terminal so its fixed,