Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[millermit]

Hiya fellas, new to the forum and am looking for a bit of advice please? I bought an old Volvo Amazon, fair nick, but the wiring's a shambles. Now, I can't criticise the previous owner really, because I despise electrics myself, (which is probably most of the reason why I have a motorbike in my living room instead on the road.)

However, during the course of my pathetic attempts to try and follow the Clymer manual diagram (with the aid of reading glasses, a magnifying glass, a pen, and a fair bit of hair pulling) I managed to get most of the electrics working, but the headlight wiring was confusing as hell. Somehow, and truly I don't know how, I connected the lights to the (what I think is) the charge relay from the alternator. Car battery got progressively flat, had to jump start it a few times to get home, and the rest of the summer I spent working on the house rather than the car. Took the first serious look at it today, thought this box was a regulator, pulled it apart and found ex-molten components.




There's a fat red wire from the alternator going straight to the battery+, another thin red wire coming from the alternator into the loom, and another one higher up on the alternator also going into the harness. Rooting through the engine bay revealed an unattached connector plug on the harness which looks suspiciously like it'll plug straight into the burnt-out relay. strewth, don't know how I missed it.
Hopefully I haven't fried the alternator too, but with the plug disconnected...?? though then again, it was connected to + and grounded via the engine mounts... I dunno, I'm confused.

So, finally (by this time you're all wondering why you didn't brew up a nice cup of tea before you started reading this ramble)
Can anyone identify this crusty box? If it IS the charge relay, then according to Amazoncars it's B419589 Alternator Charge Relay
Can I fix it? I can tackle it, no problem, as long as I know what components to replace.
Can these things be bought from a normal motor factors?

Apologies for the wordy post, concentration issues and all that, mind sort of wanders for long romantic walks on its own...

[millermit]

After MUCH trawling the interweb last night, I cobbled together some information as to what it was and more importantly how to replace it
B419589 Alternator Charge Relay - is the description in the Amazon cars catalogue

On eBay I found this:
12V 3 TERM BOSCH 0.190.600 ALTERNATOR REGULATOR 1058
£12

THIS IS A REPLACEMENT BOSCH ALTERNATOR REGULATOR
VERG 1058
VOLVO
(for replacement use in the folowing Volvo applications)
01214719 1234519 248279
241534 241960 1308030
241808 246585 530878
531914 6212039 588950
CONTACT VEHICLE ELECTRICS, 166 STOCKFIELD ROAD, ACOCKS GREEN, BIRMINGHAM, B27 6AU. TEL : 0121 706 0688 EMAIL: VEHICLEELECTRICS@AOL.COM

I've included the contact details in case this could help anyone else.