The new alternator shows around 30 v at the terminal with the engine running.
The batteries show around 22.6 v whether engine is running or not.
I get 22.6 on both sides of the ammeter whether engine is running or not.
The ammeter shows discharge when heating or starting but 0 when the engine is running.
the 2 fuses are good and the alternator is well-grounded.
I don't see a voltage regulator in the diagram or on the machine,
What am I overlooking??
Thanks!
 

thanks Neil, I will do that this weekend. i suppose it''s possible that the previous owner did some re-wiring. The ammeter has shown no charge since I got it and i've been charging from an external charger.

Neil (and Greengiant)-

A clamp on ampmeter works on AC not DC.

Daron

Check the specs of your clamp meter to see if it does DC or not. My fluke one does both.

It was indeed a continuity problem... but in a perplexing way. 2 wires that are hooked together come off the alternator. they go through a conduit, one to the heat/start, the other to the lights. there was no continuity on the one to heat/start. it's puzzling how one heavy wire in the conduit could be broken. I unhooked the one going to the lights and hooked it to the breaker and it's charging normally. 25-26 volts at the batteries and i have a little dc current meter that shows it's charging, not a clamp on, just hold it in proximity to the wire.
the ammeter doesn't show charging, which means i should have hooked it to the ammeter instead of the breaker ( didn't see Phil's post until now, but it's such a hairy tight place to work that i'm going to leave that for another day. ditto with the lights. i don't use them anyway. just so glad to have it charging.
thanks everyone!

I've had fun with broken wires that didn't look broken. and still delivered the "right" voltage but were not providing it under load. in the end we got a autolec to have a look and his apprentice found it there was a bad spot in the cable that you couldn't see. electrical gremlins are always "fun".

bad earths cause many problems. check they are clean and firmly tightened. a smear of conductive grease helps. hell a light smear of any grease helps prevent corrosion.

this is a tip with multiple batteries you want to link across the batteries so your leads go to opposite ends of the battery bank so it think its one big battery. so for a 24v bank you use the positive on one battery and the negative on the other. also have any linking wires the same length so you get even current flow like water power follows the path of least resistance usually that's the shorter/heavier wire