W126

My wife's venerable 368K mile 1984 300sd decided not to start and left her stranded. It cranks slowly but will not start and the dash lights flash while it cranks. Followed the normal systematic diagnostic approach; the battery was 5 years old, it was replaced with new,replaced the glow plug relay fuse and it has 12v power, the number 13 fuse was blown, replaced it, replaced the voltage regulator, wiggled and manipulated the shifter to see if it was the neutral safety switch, checked and rechecked all connections make sure they were tight and connected.

I was taking care of a few things before my monarch nozzels, balancer, and trans cooler lines come. Here is what I did I bought a yellow top optima put it in heard pop okay? tried to start it no glow light no antenna. Smoke from the alternator (it's okay to laugh now more laughs later too!) the voltage reg. was hot and stayed hot so fried right? Pulled it out it was going to go anyway carbon stacks real low. the only thing down where the smoke was is the alt. Here is what happened if you look at the front of an optima the positive is on left neg.