I say "The" because apparently there are more, as was discussed in the other thread, but I did find the thing that made it die. The old VR pickup had come apart. The epoxy coil molding had come loose from the iron core and had worked its way towards the trigger wheel far enough that it was actually touching the pickup. I do not know why it started at all. As Lou always says, check the most basic things first. Well, actually this time I did. Although my mind raced off into nether worlds of exotic fixes that,although might be nice, are not actually needed

I am going to the beach with my wife, kids and grandkids this week end, and have no time to fix it soon. When I get time, I have plenty of pickups I can put in there. I looks like I can drill out the pop rivet and rivet a good one back into the plate. If I knew what application was guaranteed to work here I would just buy a new one, but the last time I tried to buy a pick up for a lean burn ignition the NAPA boys were pretty flumoxed. Does anybody have a part number or application I can ask for? If not I will go ahead and fit one of the existing pickups I have to the lean burn base plate.

Once it is going again I will start working on a better alternator and maybe get the mechanical fan back in. Does anybody want this fan. I paid $350 for it. It is a special 16" slim line design that has the fan around the motor just like on a computer cooling fan. It was the only 16" fan I could find that would fit in between a slant water pump and the radiator. It was on back order for six months. I got it back when the heat was "the big deal". It certainly worked for that.

Sam

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Good sleuthing. What is the maximum thickness of that electric fan?

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Good job on finding that.

Post a model # and price, I'm very interested depending on what you have.

Excellent news, Sam. Unless it is a dual pickup dist, I would think the standard pickup should work, and may even if dual pickup??

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

NAPA part number MP839 is the direct replacement for the single pick up, lean burn. The counter guy was pretty bright this morning, and turned the screen around on the computer and let me search with him. It is for an '85 D100. It is on order from another NAPA store down near Lou.

The electric fan is from Cooling Components @ 901-336-6194. I have no part number, but the depth is 2.5". I will measure that again to be sure, but that is what it looked like this morning. There are 4 bolt heads that stick out a tiny bit further by they do not align with anything on the front of the engine at all. I purchased the fan through a rod shop in the Southwest. I ordered it in February, and it finally came in August. They were nice about it, and I was willing to wait. Pierre and Dan, you guys can do a little research over the week end and maybe find out a little more. I am out of town for the weekend.

Sam

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Glad to hear you found it - that's not a problem I see very often.

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"Mad Scientist" Matt Cramer
'66 Dart - turbocharged 225
My blog - Mad Scientist Matt's Lair

Sam - I found their site. Does it have a shroud or not? 2 speed?

I found some of your past posts saying how much you liked the fan but no pictures. Let me know a price.

It has a shroud. I think it is two speed. It has two separate power feeds. Send me a PM with an offer. You have looked at their catalog more recently than I have. I need to replace it with a mechanical fan, and have a price for that already, but will have to buy a shroud for it. I do not know what those cost. If I go mechanical fan how does this impact the AC? Will I need a small supplementary electric fan?

Sam

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No need for an electric fan, a mechanical fan works fine for AC as long as its the type with more then 4 blades.

As long as you choose an adequate mechanical fan, no, you will not need a supplementary fan of any kind.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I got the new pickup installed, gapped, and timed, and she fired right up, and seemed to run fine well beyond the point at which it died last week. So I think the RPM read is fine now. However the charging thing is still an issue and I must deal with it.

I put the charger on it last week, and the charged battery read somewhere around 13.5 when I took the charger off. It still read that right before I started the car. Upon first starting it the ECu showed 13.5 volts on the laptop screen. The alternator read 14.5, and the switched 12+ fuse bank read 13.8. Once the fan came on the voltage dropped to 13.8 at the alternator and 13.5 at the switched fuses. The relay that turns on the switched 12+ read the same on both sides, so we know the drop is not in the contacts of the relay.

As the car sat and idled and the fan cycled I could see the voltage dropping lower and lower with each cycling of the fan. By the time I shut things down, which would have been maybe 20 minutes of idling and checking things, it was down to 12.5 at the laptop gauge. So in 20 minutes the ECU saw a one volt drop. It is pretty obvious I need either a bigger alternator or a mechanical fan.

Pierre, what did you see as a retail price on this fan? Are you still interested? PM me and maybe we can work something out. Dan, can you recommend an application for an alternator? I now you gave me a model to consider, but will the NAPA guys know what to do with that information. The fan does its job well, so a reasonable alternative is to put a more powerful alternator on it. I have not decided for sure which route to go here. I want to see what my options are and how much they will cost each.

For what it is worth, the stock, single pick-up lean burn distributor is NOT phased correctly for the Mega Squirt application as I thought it was. I was using a double unit before, with one pickup removed. When I purchased the single pickup and installed it, the pickup was about 10 degrees advanced from the old one. So I had to drill new holes in the distributor body so I could rotate the plate counterclockwise and thus retard the pickup bypass in relationship to the rotor. I also had to cut a new slot in the plate for the roll pin index that is in the body of the distributor.
Sam

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Have you put an amp meter between the alternator and the battery to determine how much current it's putting out?

I'd also see how much current the fan uses, plus what the current draw is of everything else........

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

No. I assume I would need a pretty big ammeter, which I do not have. Where would one get such an animal? I might end up taking it to my mechanic and having him check it out. Can you give me some baseline metrics to compare it to. This is an old GM one-wire alternator which I think was rated at maybe 120 amps. Isn't there an inductance device that just clamps around the wire to check the current flow? Thanks for the thought.

All those are good tips. I read somewhere that the fan on my BMW draws 25 amps when it runs, which is not much of the time. It backs up the mechanical fan which takes care of most cooling chores unless you turn on the AC of course.

Sam

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Sam, you need an inductive ammeter. They work similar to a timing light, you clamp it over the wire and it reads the current passing through it. I have this one. If your shopping locally make sure you pay attention to whether it measures AC amps or AC and DC amps. Many cheaper ones will only measure AC amps.

If the voltage kept dropping as time goes - its likely electrically speaking the alternator puts out enough, but it overheats and the voltage steadily drops. The alternator does have a fan on it eh?

I don't know what your alternator situation / mounting etc looks like. It shouldn't take much to remove and mount a bigger GM unit (cs144). A stock CS144 will do 140a and will take the heat. The aftermarket support for them is tremendous and can have custom versions up to 300A. I'll dig up an application if this is the route you want to go. My brand new parts store one was less then $150 I have on my dart. On the duster I have a 200+A hi-po one that was closer to $300.

Thanks much Pierre. I will pick up the Sears tool for sure. That seems to be a must have for what I am trying to do. Can you point me in a direction for a better alternator. I might decide to save my pennies and get the $200 amp alternator. Is a junk yard a dumb place to buy an alternator? It seems like a bit of a crap shoot, with potential for both big-win and big lose.

Sam

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