Finally got the AOD into the car after the engine swap…which I still haven’t posted the pics of getting the new/old motor back in…but they’re at myspace, so find ‘em there in the meantime, I suppose. But the car had started running rough for seemingly no reason.

We adjusted the carb, the timing, retorqued the intake. Nothing looked out of place…until we connected the battery that kept dying not to the fact that I hadn’t driven the car much, but to the fact that the alternator wasn’t charging. We replaced the alternator because the wires on the back looked a little fried, but still, there was a no-charge situation again.

Hmmm…

What about the voltage regulator? That unassuming little box next to the radiator, inside the left fender… what about that thing? As we worked to get it out of the car, it made sense… the dim headlights, the flickering interior lights. Everything finally came together. That thing had been giving us symptoms for at least a year and we had been ignoring them the whole time, thinking something else was the culprit.

Once it was out of the car, it was obvious something was wrong. The prongs on the bottom were kinda fried.

So, of course we popped it open to see the real carnage. Yeah. Fried connection = no charging.

With a new regulator installed, the car runs awesomely.