Zzzzzzap! That's the sound I heard when I plugged in the battery charger hooked up to my Elan. The battery had gone flat and I wanted to go out for a cruise. My battery set up is a little different. I have the battery mounted in a marine battery box, which is sitting in the trunk area above the differential. It's out of the way and it makes for more trunk space. To make things a little difficult in identification however, both battery leads are black welding cables. The next excuse that I can think of is that I had marked the battery box with a + and - based on the last battery installed. The newer battery that is in there now has the terminals reversed. So what I SHOULD have done is tugged on the leads and confirmed the negative lead bolted to the body bobbin at the bottom of the trunk which connects to the chassis, and tugged on the positive lead which passes forward through the fiberglass out to the starter.
"You stupid idiot!" I yelled to myself as I yanked the plug out, but it was too late. The damage was done. I switched the leads and charged up the battery, but after my cruise, upon trying to restart the car my fears were confirmed, the alternator was no longer charging. I had zapped the diode pack. I had also noticed that my tach was acting goofy. It's an aftermarket Mallory tach with a built in adjustable shift indicator light and rev limiter. But now it was reading 3 thousand rpm at idle and I had to crank up the shift indicator and rev limiter because the tach was showing 9,000 rpm at cruising speed! Most Elans don't have alternators, but mine does because I installed it along with a home made wiring harness when I rebuilt the car back in 1987. It's a Lucas alternator that I had laying around in my Cortina parts bin. It puts out a few more amps and it charges fine at idle as opposed to a generator that only keeps up with the required amps at speed.
I pulled the alternator, sacrificing much skin and blood to the heater control. My friend Paul volunteered to take it in to a local alternator service near where he works. 65 dollars later I was again scribing a new scar in my right fore arm getting that bottom bolt tightened up. My son and I went out for a drive and everything seemed to be fine. But the next weekend the battery was dead. I got my old voltmeter out and discovered that the alternator had a slight short in it, draining the battery after a week of sitting. I pulled the alternator, finally figuring out how to place a rag over the heater valve so I don't stain the engine bay with blood and asked Paul to take the alternator back. They weren't happy as they probably lost money taking the alternator apart and replacing the diode pack that was dead from the first time they had it. Back in the car, things seemed ok. The tach was working and the car ran good. Even Sue drove the car for a nice 25-mile evening run!
The next week I pulled off the car cover to go the Lotus Corps rally and as I did I could see the radio light was on. Apparently, my lovely wife who had pulled the car into the garage had left the key in the accessory position which translates to the "Dead Battery in a week" position. So we put the charger back on the battery (the correct way) waited 15 minutes and headed off to the Corps breakfast before the rally.
I was concerned when the car wouldn't start in the parking lot after a 35 mile drive, but I had my 15 year old push starter and map reader with me so off we went. We were the second car out and quickly descended upon Steve Stitle and his son in their pristine Seven who were the first car out. Steve was familiar with the area we were traveling through so he would take a detour here and there and reappear back in front of us at various spots along the rally route. He did make a wrong turn in one spot and Mike and I came out ahead, traveling N/W on route 14. As I made a quick right turn off 14 and put my foot into it, the Elan burbled and didn't come on really strong. Felt like I was running out of gas but I knew I had plenty. Hmmmmm. In the middle of the next turn the car just slowly died and wouldn't take any throttle. I rolled her into an empty parking lot and without thinking, waved at Steve as he blasted by. Luckily for me, Steve decided to turn around and come to my aid.
The battery was dead, apparently my alternator was not alternating correctly. Steve became my hero of the day as he volunteered to drive to his home, which was only a few miles away and retrieve a spare battery from his ace in the hole sump pump! What a great guy. He even left me his little Seven tool pouch to get the old battery disconnected. As we sat by the side of the road and Steve sped away we wondered how long it would be before another rally car passed us by. The cars were to be spaced 2 minutes apart and we were about half way through the rally, but Steve and I had been cooking along pretty good. We waited and waited and waited and after about 20 minutes the cars started showing up. We waived them all by, as I knew Steve was on the way. Steve showed up and we plopped the big battery on the trunk floor, hooked up the leads and headed on down the road. (Carl Sarro still hadn't passed us up at that point!) We finished the rally and after a marvelous Mexican brunch and a few Dos Equis, we headed home.
I took the alternator over to PEP boys and even though I've never seen an alternator tester before, I had to go behind the counter and show the "Parts Professionals" how to hook things up. Sure enough, the alternator was dead. Now I didn't want to impose on my friend Paul again, and I'm the kind of guy that avoids confrontation (I'll never own a gun because I KNOW I would use it!) so I didn't want to return to the alternator place where Paul had gone. I opened up the yellow pages and made some calls. I found a shop in Palatine near where I work and snuck out one morning to drop off the alternator. The shop was a mess; starters and alternators piled everywhere. Their spray paint booth consisted of a piece of cardboard on top of a couple of saw horses outside next to the open garage door. Joe the owner greeted me and as he wrote up a receipt for my alternator I explained my story. He couldn't believe that I was only running one lead to the alternator. Can't work he said. Been running it that way for years I said. Well, we'll check it out and let you know.
He called me back that afternoon to say that he found nothing wrong and that he learned that you COULD in fact run only one lead. I snuck out early from work and headed back over. He had the alternator on the test machine and showed me how that the little lead on the end of the connector is the exciter lead (Hey baby, want to see my exciter lead!). It hooks up through the starter switch to a light on the tach (which I don't have on my tach) that glows when you turn on the ignition and goes out once the car starts up and the alternator starts charging. The exciter lead gets the alternator charging at low rpm. BUT, he said, watch this. He disconnected the exciter and started the alternator pulley running again. As soon as it hit 2000 rpm, the alternator started charging without the exciter (self-stimulation?) And, once charging, its stays charging even at low rpm. So as long as I blip the throttle, the alternator will charge. Well, I've got a super trap muffler and I love the sound it makes with the Twin Cam makes so I ALWAYS blip the throttle! No problemo.
So what was wrong? Well, apparently there are a number of different diode packs and the new one that had been installed by the rebuilder got my single lead hooked up to the middle lug instead of the end lug that I had always used. WORKS GREAT NOW!
