hi again as you can tell by now im electrically challenged im putting my 71 cutlass s back together i hooked up the alt wires and the battery it started right up no problem the alt light was on i look up and see smoke coming from behind the voltage regulator i shut it down and took the regulator off there is a coil on the back running from the f to the 4 terminal thats getting hot enough to smoke keep in mind i dont have any wires hooked up to the front end except the blower engine and alt the horn relay is hooked to the battery and i have a lead to ground it because my fender is off am i missing something? the secound time i checked and wiggled some wires the alt light went out but still getting smoke

 

got her fixed no more smoke i guess ya gotta figure somethings out the hard way

 

What was the issue?

 

where there's smoke there's gonna be fire. it a nature thing

 

i bought a new regulator and alt works fine now. i had the old stuff working before i changed it all it was charging at 14v at the battery the smoke quit. there was some paint on the one coil on the back not sure if they are supposed to get that hot or not but the new stuff seems fine. now onto the next problem the new rebuilt tranny doesnt move at all what a bummer

 

concerning the trans. I'd check the condition of the filter

 

the trans was just rebuilt it doesnt have 6 inches of mileage on it yet filter looked new when i dropped the pan to put the kickdown cable back on

 

The coils will get warm, but not hot to smoke. It is possible paint also got in the relay/switch contacts and caused problems that way.
Glad it was an easy fix...

 

btw, those are wirewound, high power resistors on the back of the regulator. they are made to get warm, but not too hot.


bill