Posted by David Sherman on Monday, December 06, 2004 at 11:52AM :
In Reply to: Charge questions??? posted by Dylan on Monday, December 06, 2004 at 11:27AM :
I couldn't say why the light's flickering, but first check your alternator brushes. That's the most common problem.
The regulator is adjusted by bending the tab that the spring hooks onto. If the points are so badly pitted as to need filing, something else is wrong in the system. Under normal operation, when the battery is charged and the points are vibrating, there should be only a tiny spark that's hardly visible in daylight. If there's any more spark than that, something else is wrong.
In the 3-coil units, one spring controls the charging voltage, one limits the current (to save the alternator if the battery is stone dead), and the other is not adjustable and just keeps the battery from discharging through the alternator when the engine's off. I'm not sure how the two-coil units combine all these functions, and I'm especially not sure how the one-coil ones work, except that all you can adjust on them is the voltage.