Just want to be sure before I order parts

I have a '76 70 HP Johnson 70EL76D that is new to me. The guy who sold it to me started it, shifted it through gears, we did a cylinder drop test, etc, so it all checked out. One thing the boat it was on did not have a tach. When I got it installed on mine, I found the tach did not work. I did the Joe Reeves test of swapping the gray wire to the position on the connector strip where the yellow wire coming from the stator is, and that works. I also noticed that the voltage was not going up on the battery (but it wasn't going down either) when the motor was running. All this points to replacing the rectifier, right? Also, is there any harm in running the motor with a bad rectifier other than not being able to charge the battery. Is there any danger in leaving the tach connected to the yellow wire from the stator? Thanks.

Rgds

Re: Just want to be sure before I order parts

No problem in my opinion. But there are other opinions out there.

Re: Just want to be sure before I order parts

Thank you for the help, FR. I did an additional verification of checking the resistance on the alternator leads (the yellow and yellow/gray wires from the stator) which checked out, so when I got my brand spanking new rectifier in the mail yesterday I bolted that bad boy on, wired up things as they needed to wire up per the diagram in the manual, and now I have a working Tach and 15.3 Volts from the battery when the motor is running. Can't wait to take this motor out for a spin!

-E