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Only time I would see greater than 15 volts is when the ambient temperature was like -30*F, perfectly normal regulator is temperature compensated at -13.5 millivolts per degree Celsius. When the temperature goes down, that voltage goes up.

But may not be the alternator at all, it must be able to sense the battery terminal voltage. With mine, could not do this, both the positive and negative battery terminals were crimped on bare copper wire, copper oxide, ever here of a copper oxide rectifier? Was use for over 60 years before solid state came out.

I soldered those connections on mine, solved a bunch of problems just using a DVM checking for voltage drops when under load. Even the alternator mounting can be a problem, aluminum oxide, also a good insulator, wire brush cures this, and even some silicon grease to help retard corrosion.

Computers are a problem, require a good power on reset, program counter has to be set to zero to start reading code from the beginning or get all kinds of strange codes.

Ha, SAE Engineering had a series of articles on this subject, all common sense, should look into the food industry, can toss an aluminum pop can in a ditch, looks like new ten years later. Over 500 different alloys of aluminum, some are good, others are not so good.

First rule in getting good electrical connections is to never use dissimilar metals, causes electrolysis, ha, this rule is broken a zillion times.
 
Discussion starter · #22 ·
Just an update it was a bad new battery. no more acid leaking with II replacement battery. I noticed with the bad battery the voltage was staying at 14.8 volts up to 15.1 at all time. With the good battery I notice it goes down into the upper 13 volt area up to about 14.7.
 
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