Congratulations. You are the standard that myself and many of the old farts here should be measured by. I'm about 20 years behind you and am not sure I'll ever get that far. I have already resorted to chopping wood with a chain saw.
Many years ago we pulled the 5.0 out of an 87 Cougar and stuck it in a 66 Mustang. I can't remember if the alternator had an internal regulator (like GM), an external regulator, or was controlled by the ECU. At any rate there must be voltage going to the field terminal or to the internal regulator for the alternator to put out power.
I like the term "Brute Force Engineer."
A good point. This one has the internal regulator. But the instrument panel has a VM
rather than an idiot light. So the gen rotor needs to be powered up by a different route.
I bought the car by factory order & got the complete set of factory service manuals.
Quite a pile, altho a lot of the info is for other Fords based on the Fox body.
So the manuals have info on the ThunderChicken, Cougar & so on.
Then taken away on a railway flat car. Some of the test equipment was massive. A good example was what is required to do copper & core loss.
The hookup results in a load of very low power factor, the local utility needs to supply a lot of current that does no work other than heat the
copper in the supply. For small stuff, no problem. But here we are in a different place.
The way out is a massive MG set, the synchronous drive motor was 1300 HP. And the alternator it drove about 8-10 times physically larger.
In that case the local utility was happy & the alternator easily drove the loads.
Other equipment included a 2MV DC pile of alternate caps & insulators for lightning tests. Double voltage at 240 Hz.
And AC breakdown to 336 KV. There were a couple of 120 Ton Cranes to move the test objects around.
I also spent about 3yrs at HP traveling the country with Land Survey equipment based on some of Hewlett's ideas.
So I got to go to work in Jeans, safety boots & a hard hat.😀
rather than an idiot light. So the gen rotor needs to be powered up by a different route.
I bought the car by factory order & got the complete set of factory service manuals.
Quite a pile, altho a lot of the info is for other Fords based on the Fox body.
So the manuals have info on the ThunderChicken, Cougar & so on.
That comes partly from the time I spent in the test department of Ferranti where industrial size transformers were built.
Then taken away on a railway flat car. Some of the test equipment was massive. A good example was what is required to do copper & core loss.
The hookup results in a load of very low power factor, the local utility needs to supply a lot of current that does no work other than heat the
copper in the supply. For small stuff, no problem. But here we are in a different place.
The way out is a massive MG set, the synchronous drive motor was 1300 HP. And the alternator it drove about 8-10 times physically larger.
In that case the local utility was happy & the alternator easily drove the loads.
Other equipment included a 2MV DC pile of alternate caps & insulators for lightning tests. Double voltage at 240 Hz.
And AC breakdown to 336 KV. There were a couple of 120 Ton Cranes to move the test objects around.
I also spent about 3yrs at HP traveling the country with Land Survey equipment based on some of Hewlett's ideas.
So I got to go to work in Jeans, safety boots & a hard hat.😀
