Early 1970 voltage regulator compatibility

[Kingbird6]

I am restoring my 1/70 240 and my wiring harness has a 5 pin connector with a separate lead that connects to a condenser. All of the replacement voltage regulators available have a 6 pin connector and no supplier seems to know for sure if it is a plug and play fit for my setup. At one point I'm sure I replaced the original regulator but the car was completely disassembled for a "frame off" resto several years ago and the shop misplaced my regulator so i'm going from scratch here. Any advice ?

Thanks

Brian

[Zed Head]

There seems to be a "I only have five wires" virus going around, it's very strange. I've never seen so many common threads.

Search around this forum and the internet and you'll find more "five wire" threads. I haven't seen any of the problems resolved yet. Your best path might be to use the wiring diagram and a meter to figure out what the five wires that you have do and see if you can find a regulator that will get the job done.

[Mikes Z car]

The voltage regulator on my 1/1970 car appears to be NOS as the cad finish is very shiny almost like it just came out of the box. It has six wires though the connector on the car only has five wires. The car has been like this at least since 2008 when I got it and voltage wise appears to work fine. One of the positions for a wire on the car connector is empty, there is no wire there but there is a corresponding wire on the voltage regulator connector. Maybe the original regulator had 5 wires but the newer 6 wire regulators also plug in and work? Someone else may know better how to interpret that.

[AZ-240z]

That is exactly the wiring setup that is on my voltage regulator. My car is a 1/71 series 1 car. Don't ask me why, but I don't think this is ABBY-NORMAL!

[tlorber]

A Datsun Roadster regulator may be the same one-especially for your '70 since that was the last year of the roadster and Datsun was using some of the same parts. I used one on my '73 that worked until I installed an internally regulated alternator.

Scroll down and search on this site for "Voltage Regulator"

Datsunparts.com Query Results

Edited January 14, 2014 by tlorber

[Mikes Z car]

Kingbird6,

Can you tell where the condenser wire goes, does it go inside the voltage regulator along with the other wires that go inside the voltage regulator? My 1/70 car doesn't have a separate wire for a condenser to connect to, that is the voltage regulator doesn't have a wire flopping around with nothing connected to it. There is no condenser that I can see either. The PO put a fuel pump in that area, don't know if they might have changed anything.

Edited January 14, 2014 by Mikes Z car

[Kingbird6]

Yeah I'm pretty sure the 6 wire modern replacements will work ok. I definitely ran a 6 wire for years on my 5 pin harness without paying attention and I never did reconnect the free bullet connector lead to a new condenser (just left it hanging). I did have a possible battery overcharge situation at one time years ago but cant recall if that was a result of the wrong regulator or the old regulator or a higher am alternator since I screwed around with so many components. In any event, the car ran fine for years afterward so I probably answered my own question but didnt want to experiement with a newly restored harness without knowing for sure.

[Kingbird6]

Mikes Z car,

To answer your question, the condenser used to secure to the same screw that attaches to the regulator bracket. It had a wire with a bullet connector that plugged into a separate lead coming out of my harness. Otherwise, my connector looks just like yours with the empty slot. Sounds like you are missing that condenser lead but I recall it only was there as noise suppression for the radio. Maybe someone clipped it off at some point ?