70 Charger wiring part question

[pumper.atv 26]

in the process of rewiring my charger 12 and the two AC wires run through a block on the frame before going to the engine. i am curious of what it is, if i need it, and which wire goes where

Thanks

[Save Old Iron 1,571]

It is a diode assembly like the one shown below.

It is essentially the RECTIFIER half of a RECTIFIER / REGULATOR system.

My advice is to remove it from the tractor (it is not original equipment) and forget about it.

If you were to hook up the AC leads from the stator to the terminals marked AC on the diode assembly, you would have over 20 volts of pulsating DC voltage available from the (+) and (-) terminals. There is no easy way to regulate this DC voltage down to the 14 VDC needed to safely charge a battery.

If you were stranded on a desert island and need to charge batteries off this device, it could be done with constant supervision of the battery voltage.. The likely outcome of using this device is the battery will be overheated, boil over or explode.

Long story short, for safety sake, remove it and toss it in your junk bin.

[pumper.atv 26]

thanks again SOI so another question about it why would someone install that between the stator and regulator?

[Save Old Iron 1,571]

They may have been using the diode assy INSTEAD OF THE RR UNIT. The current RR unit may be defective and they put in this $5 device instead of a $50 regulator.

Then again, the current RR unit may be functional. If you clean up the wiring, clean up the ground connections to the RR, you may have a fully functional charging system. Couldn't hurt to try.

One more thought - if you ran the tractor about half speed with the diode assy hooked up, the output from the diode assy would (at lowered engine RPM) put out a low enough voltage to properly charge the battery. As I said before, if you were stranded on a desert island, you could make this work. As along as Gilligan doesn't come along and try to run the engine full speed to power up his coconut shell shortwave radio !!