Hitchcocks Forum

Hi All, I'm newbie to Enfield's and to this forum. I've had Brit bikes as a young teenager back in the late 60's so I'm not a complete stranger to the vagaries of Brit bikes. I've got a 1987 India Royal Enfield iron barrel 350 4 speed 12 volt. I've had it running, However it needed a bit off fettling here and there. The wiring that I could see was a bit iffy with twisted wire joints and insulating tape, most of which was hanging off. Further investigation in the headlamp and under the the tank, revealed that the loom has been hacked about somewhat and there were lots more twisted wire joints. Having decided that could save the loom. I set about soldering new bullets on and making good the iffy joints. I have one of our hosts manuals with wiring diagram for that year of bike. So I was relatively confident I could sort the mess out. It soon became apparent that the wiring was not following that diagram or any other diagram. I' ve sorted out the ignition switch and the electronic ignition. Its the alternator I'm struggling with.
The alternator has 3 wires coming from it Black Green and White. The rectifier / regulator I believe is a one piece solid state unit with 6 wires in 2 separate looms. Red, Orange & Black, Black and White. The Black was earthed, The Orange and Black went to a Brown in the ignition switch, The red as far as could tell went to the + on the battery.
So the problem lies in that all the wiring diagrams I've come across have separate regulators and rectifiers and the colours on the alternator wires are all different from mine. can anyone give me clue what goes where.
The bike isn't running at the minute as most of the loom is disconnected and I don't want to start it if the alternator and reg/rectifier isn't wired correctly.
I've named the bike "PERFIDIOUS" as that seems to be appropriate to its nature.

Hi All, I've just realised I did'nt put the other 3 wires from the regulator / rectifier in the original post. They are all yellow. So to confirm there are Red, Orange and Black, Black and White and 3 Identical Yellow coming from the reg/rectifier.
Stuart

Stuart,



if your reg/rectifier has three yellow wires it's a three-phase item, the Bullet alternator of that period, despite having three wires, is single phase. For the 12V use of what was an Indian copy of a 6V Lucas alternator, it's usual to have a single phase reg/rectifier with two of the AC wires (green and purple according the the wiring diagram in the Pete Snidal manual rather than green and black) linked to one AC terminal, and the white wire on its own to the other AC terminal. You could always upgrade to a genuine Lucas 3 phase alternator if you wanted!



A.

Thanks for that info it's had me scratching my head for a while. I'll probably replace either the alternator or the regulator /Rectifier at some point. The loom is in a poor state the plan at the moment is just to get all the lights working and battery charging sorted so I can ride this summer. That will give me chance to debug the rest of the bike. Then a major overhaul over the winter.