Monday, April 12, 2010

DIY Converting to Internally Regulated Alternator

My 4A-GE comes with an internally-regulated alternator, IR alternator from now on. Having very few chances to see my Charmant, i thought it still has the stock alternator which is externally-regulated (ER) by a electromechanical cut-out regulator (the black box near your battery). Hence, i was prepared to convert my charging system to suit the engine's alternator.

Here's a picture of the cut-out regulator and engine bay fuse box. You'll fiddle with these two stuff on doing this conversion.
Fortunately for me, i found out that the previous owned had replaced the alternator with an IR type so i was spared from having to figure out the charging system wiring. All there was left for me to do is extend the wires going to the alternator as it is now on the driver's side.

I won't discuss in detail about the ER alternator as i also have very few references about it. I don't even own a Charmant wiring diagram. (yes.. i would be in deep trouble if i actually had to convert from ER to IR). I will just jump to the IR system and tell you which wire to tap from the old system.

Here's an IR alternator charging system. Below is a Toyota charging system so i'll assume all IR alternators meant for Toyota models are using the same system.
As can be seen from above pic, there are four pins that you need to figure out from your alternator: B, IG, S and L, respectively stand for Battery, Ignition, Sense and Lamp. Consecutively, you need to figure out which cable from your Charmant's stock system to be connected to these pins.

First, here's my alternator pinout. If you have the same alternator, lucky you. If not, google is your friend.
Many people mistakenly assume that the large B lug on the alternator as the ground for the alternator and end up with a very expensive bonfire in their garage or at least, a glowing "ground" cable. Don't make the same mistake. B is in fact the alternator's charge output and should be connected to the battery. The ground is on the alternator body only so you won't need a dedicated ground cable for it. Just make sure you have a good ground loop on the engine block.

With the alternator side done, all that is left to do is figure out which wires on your Charmant to tap and connect to the alternator.

First, B should be connected to the battery. Your old alternator should have the B wire already. It's the thick wire approximately the diameter of your pinky.

IG can be tapped from from the ignition coil. It's the wire which connects to the (+) of the ignition coil. There maybe neater way to tap the ignition signal but this was how i found it on my car.

The rest, L and S are taken from the fuse box. Here are the wires that you need to tap.
There you have it. Four wires to tap on your Charmant stock system and four pins to connect on your alternator. Connect these pairs together and you should be done. I admit there must be neater way to have this done. I am quite sure that S, IG and L can also be found on the cut-out regulator's connector. If they do, it's better to tap the wires there as they would be kept close together and easier to troubleshoot.

Excuse me for not actually showing you the conversion work. I am merely showing you how it was done on my Charmant which was working properly the last time it is running. I will take no liability if you anything goes wrong. Blame the guy who did the conversion on my car.

2 comments:

  1. What Are the colours for the wires are the same for 4k charmants

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  2. No pics , pictures are gone

    Best regards

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