Carver Owners Forum

I'm a new Carver owner - 1986 36' - and batteries are not charging. Here is a shot of the starboard alternator. It looks shot to me and have a mechanic coming out 4/20, but what is the rectangular item wired to it? The regulator? See pic below

Yes, that should be the regulator. Not sure where you are, but those alternators can be tested and rebuilt at a lot of starter/alternator shops. Pretty easy to take them off (don't short the big red wire to anything!). Just make sure they know it's a marine alternator (good shops would recognize it anyways).

If you're not charging, does that mean the other engine/alternator isn't either? That's one downside to having both engines run off the same battery bank. You won't know if both alternators are working and you won't know when just one fails. I tried to make a habit of alternating which engine I started first, and checked voltage after that motor started before I started the other one.

Unless there's some obvious damage, you usually can't tell just because the "look shot". Sometimes you can tell if there's a bearing issue with some noise. Unless you know when the other one was replaced, I'd probably have both taken out and tested and probably even rebuilt. With the age of the engines if they were both original I would expect the other one to have similar wear and possibly be at it's end-of-life.

Thank you for the quick response. We’ll try alternating which engine we start first and check the batteries.

Welcome to the forum