I overhauled an alternator for my project car, and it didn’t work. I may have damaged the regulator by installing it wrong? In the spirit of saving some money (and not destroying another expensive solid state unit), I decided to try an external regulator.  I soldered a wire to the leg of the regulator that fed the field. I ran it out the enclosure, and re-installed the alternator. With the engine running, I energized the field by touching the wire to the alternator post. The alternator immediately started charging, proving that everything was ok except the regulator.

I wired up a Ford voltage regulator (diagram post later) and it seems to work.

Here's where to energize the field

Just need to clean the regulator up and give it a permanent mount.

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