right i recently bought the trak, my first, which had been lying up for a couple of years. generally seems in decent shape, despite over 185 thousand miles. but obviously all's not well, as after two days my battery light and fuel drain light come on immediately after starting, and won't turn off even with revs heading towards the red. voltage at the battery was reading just under twelve, dropping when any load put on, won't increase when revs go up.

so i brought the alternator to my friendly, local, old school alternator/starter motor guy. he tells me the diodes are gone, that he doesn't do them himself, and that I'm likely looking at the guts of 200 euro by the time all's said and paid for, and that even then it may be 'dicky'. he also said he'd never heard of this problem happening on a fourtrak, and he's been in the business a long time.

i called Milner who say they've no idea when a replacement new one might be back in stock. then i start worrying, and scouting, and as luck would have it a scrap yard about two hours away had one.
picked it up this afternoon, and the voltage regulator for, well,just in case. despite several people -including my nearest daihatsu dealer- telling me there was only ever one type of alt on diesel fourtraks, the mounting brackets are slightly wider -very roughly an inch wider- than on the original, and one of the oil fittings to the vacuum pump comes out of it on the opposite side. i haven't taken any measurements, but aside from that they look very similar.

my question, i guess, is did i just waste four hours driving, and a hundred euro? i really don't fancy driving back there to get the other bracket if for any reason they might be incompatible, and i don't particularly trust the scrap yard at this point anyway. does it sound like it's off an older vehicle? or a newer one? or a completely different one?

dealer says brand new daihatsu alt comes in at -holy crap!- 800 something plus vat. so I'm reluctant to do that, obviously.

the lady in question (ie my fourtrak) is a 1997 f78 tdl, and the reason i want it fixed is that I've no other 4wd- and it's due to snow on Sunday!

love looking through the forums by the way. serious knowledge imparted over the years.