One of many long weekend projects. Too hot to drive today and too wet to drive over the next few days with lots of thunderstorm warnings, which often come with hail when the fronts collide, as they are expected to.

When I bought my car, the engine bay electrical panel was complete, but covered with overspray. You can see the original ivory white in there though. The CDI didn't work and the SEV Marchal Black plastic voltage regulator was also toast.

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The trials with the CDI have been described earlier, and Bob Ashlock restored an original for me. I had a spare Transpo VR floating around in my stash of stuff I bought for the restoration and that's what we used to get the car going. Works just fine. Still, it didn't look right, even though it's hidden behind the black plastic cover in the engine bay.

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A couple of years ago I snagged an original tin can SEV Marchal VR, but really didn't want to trust it as a daily driver piece of equipment, even though it is adjustable and I replaced the batteries with Odyssey PC925s which are AGMs.

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After doing some measurements, I realized that the VR sold through Pelican should fit in the tin can cover of the original. So I bought one.

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Ground off some of the edges. Cut the plastic mounting tabs and painted them a cad plated colour. Rerouted the ground to be behind the painted tab. Popped the tin can on it and voila! A VR that works like a charm, but doesn't rub me the wrong way when I look at it. It's the one on the left of course. It's not perfect as the tabs are a bit different, but you do have to look pretty closely to tell its not the original.

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Happy Saturday!