The car (when bought) already had an alternator fitted but for some reason some parts of the wiring were half connected to the old voltage regulator - and there was a whole load of spliced in mess to make it all work.
To be honest I took one look at it all and thought "that's going in the bin" - I couldn't be bothered to try and understand what had been done and why.
This has meant that I've had to toddle off to the interweb to try and understand what is going on - well what should be going on - and how it would be best to re-wire the car.
Looking at the Volvo wiring diagram they seem to use the main / large connector on the starter motor as a central point from which the rest of the vehicle is powered. This results in a nice single connection to the +tve terminal on the battery. The original wiring route for the power charging side of the system was dynamo to regulator to the terminal on the starter motor...
...the position and relationship between the positions of the battery (storage), alternator (power generation) and the rest of the electrical system (load / usage) got me thinking and searching about for an ideal arrangement.
After much reading I found this site =>
http://www.madelectrical.com/electri...witworks.shtml
In the link above there is a nice explanation of how regulators work (for people like me who struggle with electrickery). I particularly liked the concept that the best place to measure the requirements of an electrical system is from a central point where the power generation, storage and usage meet.
So after checking that the alternator is indeed a three wire system...
...I've come up with the following plan
I intend to fit a central connecting point on the inside of the engine bay on the alternator side of the engine and run the main power feed through into the passenger foot well where the buzz bars for the fuse box and ignition switch will be housed. After the fuse box the wires will be run throughout the vehicle as described previously to the other two "electrical connection areas".
I think I'm getting used to this electrickery.
Exposure does help. For example: I now realise that the charging warning light comes on because of a "switch" in the regulator fitted to the alternator - that's the point where the magic happens... (!)