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CS130 Alternator Retrofit


LBC28730

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Hello everyone. 
Couple of questions regarding the retrofitting of the CS130 alternator to my 1981 505 TD.

This alternator is commonly used in many custom applications as a "one wire" solution. 
Looking at how the factory alternator is connected, I wonder if I can simply connect it as a "one wire" set up and eliminate the other wires involved, or if I need to determine where these other wires go and connected them through the JBT plug. 

I have a JBT plug on the way, just in case. 

All I can find in the factory service manual is what appears to be two wires ("4" in the diagram) going from the alternator (6) to the starter (13) and another ("7") that I think goes to "A3", which looks to be a fuse box/distribution point. 

The heavier wires at the top definitely go to the starter (can I just replace with one heavier wire?) and I assume, looking at the diagram, that one of the wires must go to the AC Compressor clutch (108).

It appears that the "TRANSPO-CN" is relative to the internal voltage regulator and not the entire alternator as a unit. 

Thanks in advance for any input!

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I found the answer!
Apparently one of these goes to the charge warning light. 
I think maybe the "S" connection is the one that is jumpered on the original alternator. 
Should be well on the way to getting this set up, as long as the pulley shaft ends up in the right place!

I'll update, for sure. 

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Are the connector pins the only connections?  I’d assume it still had a lug for the heavy gauge wires, and the “S” would be the 12V signal wire off the original (black or the other smaller yellow wire that gets 12V signal?)

Curious how it lines up!

 

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What I am thinking it that one of the wires that would plug into the "J" plug go to the voltatge warning light. 
I am in the process of making a new bracket to support the front of the alternator, as the CS130 has to sit quite a bit more aft to line up with the other pulleys .
It will be a bit of fabrication but in for a penny in for a pound at this point!
I should have plenty of power to run the vacuum pump for the brakes, as well as anything else I add!
I will definitely post all the details when I figure it out. 
I want this to be my daily and it's on jack stands right now so I am motivated to figure it out soon! 

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Couldn't take a photo holding the straightedge to pulley faces but this is roughly what I have to accommodate. 
Most of that can be cut off the back of the CS130 alternator and allow it to set far enough forward to align the belt. 
After that will be creating/aligning the tensioning portion on the bottom, which will really be the easiest part in my opinion. 

I COULD easily machine some material off the mounting bracket but, I would rather keep those parts as stock as possible. (photos are reverse orientation, the alternators would be facing the other way)

I removed and am planning on fabricating another bracket that would mount on the front of that top pivot point, although I'm not sure it would be necessary. 

I did consider just transferring the pulley assembly but the output shaft on the new alternator is too short to accommodate that. 

Bright side of that is I can have my alternator guy rebuild the old one and have it for sale if anyone needs it!
 

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How far out is the pulley if you bolt it in place as is?  The new alternator has a wide mount so it likely would be quite stable with just one shear plane and the bolt through both.

If it were me I’d be tempted to alter the mount to accommodate the alternator so that it’s a bolt on.  That way future repairs / replacement are bolt on affairs.

There’s no real value in keeping it original, or it not being able to go back 100% stock since you’re making it better.

 

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Good point. I am not maintaining a concourse vehicle, here!
It definitely sticks out too far just mounted up directly. 
I think I'll put a bolt through it and take some measurements. If I can take it off the mount itself that would be great, I think I may have to take a little off both, though. 
I'd rather just cut one part or the other if at all possible, to try to keep the mounting as true to square as possible. 

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This is just bolted on to the stock bracket. 
As you can see it's even past the point where the PS belt mounts so it's got to come back a good 12-15mm. 
I'm lining up straightedges and all that right now to see if I can get a good dimension as to how far it goes back, and see where I have the clearance to make the modifications. 

I was blown away to find that the thermostat is just clamped into the upper pump hose! haha...  I had to go back and look at my manuals to make sure this wasn't an on the fly fix by someone!

As an aside, coolant looks great so that's something. 

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I took just under 15mm off and it looks really close. 
Possibly close enough that I may try to run with this configuration and see how the belt interface plays out. 
Still have to figure out the lower tensioner pivot, it's possible it will just bolt up or be very close, just have to wait until tomorrow to sort that out. 

I think that even if this distance isn't dead on, it will be really easy to remove the stock bracket and take some more material off to line it up. 

Hope to have the alternator sorted out by tomorrow at some point, and then to finish setting up the auxiliary vacuum pump.

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That looks really good - V belts can take a fair bit it misalignment and still be fine - my GM alternator retrofit was off a good 10mm but was quite far away (40 - 50cm) from the crank and water pump pulleys and it was fine.  I did it in a hurry with the idea of redoing the mount later, but the belt never gave me any issues at all after install.

 

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On 8/7/2022 at 12:27 PM, Bean said:

That looks really good - V belts can take a fair bit it misalignment and still be fine - my GM alternator retrofit was off a good 10mm but was quite far away (40 - 50cm) from the crank and water pump pulleys and it was fine.  I did it in a hurry with the idea of redoing the mount later, but the belt never gave me any issues at all after install.

 

Good to know. I'm really happy with the alignment for the first try. 
I think I would like to make a bracket for the front of the alternator belt, like the stock mount, just to keep it from potentially twisting over time. 
Of course, much like your intentions, it may just be fine and I won't worry about it. 

I am about to make the lower tensioning bracket as I haven't even been under there to look at that. I MAY be able to shim it to fit, at least for now, if need be. 

Also working on the wiring for the brake booster. Currently the only part I need to figure out is the switched/ignition power supply. Hopefully it will be pretty easy looking at the diagrams when I get down to that point. 

ALSO, I think I fixed my sunroof (we'll see when I have power back in). It was silicone shut and when I got back to the motor, it looks like the cable just came out of the feed wheel, and then the PO just unhooked the motor. 

It's coming along! Very excited to be making the incremental progress to having a solid daily!

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Overall I am really pleased with how the first test run of the alternator went. It's not dead on but damn it's close for cutting with a side grinder.
At idle it was fine and putting out a good solid 14.3v @ the battery. 
Anything over idle gave a bit of a squeal and you can see from the top that it needs to rotate counter clockwise maybe 2 deg.

I also had the tensioner torqued to the alternator so that was pulling it off square for sure. 

I took a slight bit of material off the left of vertical center on the stock bracket and have a good solid 50.43 +/- .03 all the way around so that should be solid. 

I also made a sleeve to accommodate for the distance between the tensioner bracket and the alternator body. 
It sits on the back of the CS130 alternator, as opposed to the front of the stock alternator. 
If this configuration works out as I anticipate, I will get another sleeve that more closely fits the tensioner bolt, just for long term stability. 

Thanks to Rabin's logic and suggestion, I am making it as close as I can to where the alternator will be a drop in if it needs to be replaced in the future. 
I also determined that I can use the mounting points of the vacuum pump to also mount the vacuum switch, and therefore have it grounded without creating another mounting point or running a ground to the switch body, as many muscle car retrofits suggest (cars with high cam lobes or "aggressive cams" also need auxiliary pumps as the engine does not produce enough vacuum to operate the brakes).

I immediately noticed that with the engine running I have turn signals but no headlights/taillights. I haven't looked at the wiring diagrams yet but I assume this means that one of the mystery wires but go to the lighting relay, which makes complete sense. 

I DID notice that the charging light and engine temp warning light were NOT illuminated so that is something that is part of the overall system and does not involve these connections. 

My battery was too small for the car and wasn't showing up as too healthy so I went ahead and got the proper battery today as well. 

Hopefully have this all sorted out sometime today!

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If the through bolt is nice and snug in the alternator hole then I doubt you’ll need an L bracket on the front, but the more secure you make it the better.

Sunroof cables notoriously fail with the sheath splitting, so it will pull the sunroof open, but when you close the cable pushes out of the sheath and it can’t close it.

PO likely figured there was an issue with the motor, but you’ll need to access the cable itself to repair it.

One of the long term members used hydraulic hose to replace the cable sheath and it worked great.

 

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7 minutes ago, Bean said:

If the through bolt is nice and snug in the alternator hole then I doubt you’ll need an L bracket on the front, but the more secure you make it the better.

Sunroof cables notoriously fail with the sheath splitting, so it will pull the sunroof open, but when you close the cable pushes out of the sheath and it can’t close it.

PO likely figured there was an issue with the motor, but you’ll need to access the cable itself to repair it.

One of the long term members used hydraulic hose to replace the cable sheath and it worked great.

 

Excellent, great information as always. 
I'll dive into the sunroof once this is sorted out. 

Just remembering looking at it, the cable was out so I am sure that is what happened. 

Has anyone found a good solution for the seal?
This one seems decent actually, but it could be better. 

 

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Dead on!

I see that it originally went to it's own post on the stock alternator but I def don't want to just hook it up to the hot, risking putting way too many amps through it. 

Now on to finishing up the vacuum pump and I will likely try just putting that homeless cord to the same ignition "on" signal point and see what happens. 

I am ready for a drive.

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Damn - that looks sweet!  Looks completely stock “plus”, and you should notice EVERYTHING works better with that alternator.

Electrical is buffered by the battery and limited by the voltage regulator, so the circuit should only draw what it needs rather than get overloaded.

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38 minutes ago, Bean said:

Damn - that looks sweet!  Looks completely stock “plus”, and you should notice EVERYTHING works better with that alternator.

Electrical is buffered by the battery and limited by the voltage regulator, so the circuit should only draw what it needs rather than get overloaded.

I will be the first to admit that as much as I grasp physics, electrical fundamentals have always seemed to allude me to the point that I never feel I 100% grasp what is going on. 

My thought was, if I ran that small wire off the main (only) power output on the alternator, it would be susceptible to the maximum draw that the system needed, and therefore would receive more amperage as the rest of the system required more.  Is that incorrect?

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52 minutes ago, LBC28730 said:

I will be the first to admit that as much as I grasp physics, electrical fundamentals have always seemed to allude me to the point that I never feel I 100% grasp what is going on. 

My thought was, if I ran that small wire off the main (only) power output on the alternator, it would be susceptible to the maximum draw that the system needed, and therefore would receive more amperage as the rest of the system required more.  Is that incorrect?

Finding the headlight/horn switch is always hot shows that my theory is certainly incorrect. 
I don't completely understand how it is doing what it does but it is clear I am overthinking it and I will let it go at that and just be glad to have headlights. 

Thanks again!

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I managed to figure out the headlights!
Switch tested good by showing that the horn worked and the appropriate fuse was intact. 

Turns out there was one random 30a fused wire floating around the battery. 
I assumed this was something to do with the blower fan that had been rigged to work only on one speed. 
I realized that the fan hack was done with speaker wire and this was different. 
I hooked it up to the battery positive and voil'a! 

All and all the alternator swap is running perfectly, although I still need to sort out what the other two wires are supposed to go to. 
I have a "Jplug" adapter coming today and that should help me sort that out. 

It was DEFINITELY not power bc I tried to actually hook the eyed wire to the hot and upon connecting the power I almost let the magic smoke out of what I thought had something to do with glow plug heating but now I am not so sure.
Upon removing the cover I can see what solder points started to cook and I am sure I can repair it if need be. 

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Looks like the box was the glow plug relay control box.

Do you know if old alternator was internally regulated or is there an external voltage regulator?

If the car had the external voltage regulator then it can all be removed since the new alternator is internally regulated.  External regulator could explain the extra wires at the alternator.

Since it almost let the smoke out, you can pretty much know it’s ground - what color the wire?  Peugeots usual use yellow with a green stripe for ground.

Does the car have a manual bypass for the glow plug circuit?  Seems to be a common addition from previous owners - they either remove the timer and install manual control,  or add in a manual bypass to run the glow plugs.


 

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6 hours ago, Bean said:

Looks like the box was the glow plug relay control box.

Do you know if old alternator was internally regulated or is there an external voltage regulator?

If the car had the external voltage regulator then it can all be removed since the new alternator is internally regulated.  External regulator could explain the extra wires at the alternator.

Since it almost let the smoke out, you can pretty much know it’s ground - what color the wire?  Peugeots usual use yellow with a green stripe for ground.

Does the car have a manual bypass for the glow plug circuit?  Seems to be a common addition from previous owners - they either remove the timer and install manual control,  or add in a manual bypass to run the glow plugs.


 

I'd assume the old alternator was internally regulated as the only number I pulled off it corresponded with a voltage regulator.

I don't believe it has a manual glow plug timer but that has been something I considered, as well as individual leads. I feel starting should be easier and even after replacing the glow plugs, it takes a couple tries to start when it's fully cooled off (typically overnight).

The wire is yellow with a small eye. 

On the old alternator it had a dedicated post, smaller than the main positive post.

There was also a female spade that went to a dedicated point.

I received my J plug today so I'm assuming one of these are supposed to go to the charging light, as it does not operate at all, now.

I'm going to have the old alternator rebuilt so maybe my guy that does that will have some insight as to the other terminals.

As you mentioned, many things that didn't work, work now.

Seat belt, headlight on, and key in ignition warnings all work now where they did not before.

I had the vacuum pump all set up as well but then the new pump was faulty. I have another one coming Saturday and hopefully that will sort all that out.

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