Bob - a charging system question??

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by DanEC

Thanks Bob and Patrick - at least 5 watts then. I suspected I wouild need something a lot heavier than Radio Shack stocks. I'll give John a call this week and order one of your 20 ohm resisters. Can't remember if I cecked continuity on the fuse last Spring either - plan to do that today first.

You know, with electronic voltage regulators Ford used a 500 ohm resistor in parallel around the warning light. It was only on the older style stuff that they used a 15 ohm resistor in parallel. A lot of our OEM looking voltage regulators are really the newer style on the inside, but look old on the outside. I don't know whether you are new or old on the inside. But, if you surf the Ford forums, you'll see some people saying 500 or 560 ohms and some saying 15 ohms, and they have their Ford/Autolite documentation in front of them as they write it, and that's the reason. Plus, a lot of people don't use any resistor at all, or don't know whether they have anything in there to begin with. I suppose, in theory, you would want to use the highest ohm parallel circuit around the light that resulted in proper excitation of the VR.

EDIT: An authoritative cite: http://workshop-manuals.com/ford/exp...nd_inspection/