I was having trouble getting the cables to plug into that alternator, so I pulled it to take a better look. The "+" terminal that the thick brown wire should go to was just a crusty stub of its former self - no wonder the alternator light flickered from time to time on the drive home. The cable must have only been resting there. I'm going to have to open that alternator up to see if I can clean up the remains and solder a bit of wire to it.
So in the mean time, I've pulled the alternator off the parts van. I thought this was a two-wire type job, but on inspection... it's a three-wire one:
I'm guessing with this setup I still want to delete the small brown wire and stick the stripy wire on the smaller of the three pins? Then it's a case of working out which of the other two pins the big brown wire goes on, and which is for an earth?
By the way, the loom on this van doesn't have a black wire, and there was nothing plugged into the (intact) "-" terminal. There is a condenser-type thing mounted nearby plugged into nothing though. Would that have been that?
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With the top smashed off the oil pressure sensor (which I enjoyed), the rest spun out with a socket and the forceful application of elbow, and the working one from the spares van spun happily in.
But on the topic of oil, something rather annoying about this particular van is the dipstick, which I just can't seem to read. It always comes out faintly oily all over but with no definitive level visible on it. When I bought the van it looked like there was hardly any oil in there (below the bottom of the dipstick), so I kept putting oil in, and still nothing helpful. I ended up dropping all oil and refilling it with what I knew to be the correct right amount, to drive it home.
The stick is much skinnier than the one on my other CFs, and the tube it goes down is bent into a graceful 'S' and held that way by a little clip next to the oil filter mounting. I'm going to try and remember to take a picture of it tomorrow, so perhaps someone can enlighten me as to whether it's a proper CF one or not.
I'm used to CFs loosing a bit of oil as they go, and so I check the level at least weekly. I don't want to have to drop it out and measure it and tip it back in all the flipping time!
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In other news, starting fitting my LPG stuff. Here's the vaporiser tucked away under the heater snout:
