[chopper]

The solid state unit which I put on my car a few years back is identical in outward appearance to the original unit, basically a little black box which mounted and connected exactly as the original. I got it at one of the local alternator repair shops when I was down in Florida. The gentleman at the shop said that the unit was designed to replace the OEM units and maintain the appearance of the original. I'm not trying to be dense here, but why would you want to stay with the old mechanical (read: failure prone) regulator when the solid state unit is available, cheaper, orders of magnitude more reliable and looks identical?