Reply To: 6 to 12 volt conversion.

Purists – look away now…

This is how I fitted my alternator. It’s a Lucas 17ACR (£55 from Moss-europe) with a different pulley to accept the original wide belt. The brackets are cut from a strip of steel that used to support my rear bumper.

You can see I fitted a heat shield because I was concerned the plastic cover (and the regulator inside it) were a bit close to the exhaust. It may not be necessary but I didn’t want to find out the hard way. The alternator runs a little slower than it would in its intended installation. That meant I needed to have a lower resistance ignition warning light – so I wired 2 Halfords warning lights in parallel which seems to work quite well. I converted all the bulbs to 12V – I have lovely halogens up front – but I left the 6V starter alone – so far (30,000 km) so good (touch wood!). The wipers and fuel gauge run off a solid state 12V to 6V converter (there a loads on ebay for about £10) which is wired through a relay so it is only live when the ignition is on. That sits on the bulkhead next to the redundant voltage regulator. I think it might get a bit hot there as occasionally I lose the 6V – it would probably be better mounted inside the car.

With the headlights on the switch gets very hot so I intend to put some relays in there when I get the time.

So – not pretty, but cheap.

Chris