What is the group number for the original size battery on the 57-60 pickups?
I need to run out to John Deere and see if they have one. (best place to find old odd size batterys around here).

 

Probably something like a group 29N, they were sort of narrow tall batteries, wide. Power punch? Sta-Ful? I'd just buy the largest, heaviest battery that will fit.

 

thanks. I decided to rebuild my rusted out battery carrier to house a group 31 battery I already had. 925 cca and 180 minutes of reserve.

 

*whistles* That'll work! One thing that folks running stock generators need to keep in mind (you may not be, but) reserve minutes are important. Everyone focuses exclusively on CCA but unlike alternator systems there are times when the entire electrical system must be supported exclusively by the battery, so it needs some deep reserve capacity to handle this.

High CCA in a battery are achieved at the expense of reserve capacity in any given group size by the use of a higher number of thinner plates. In this case (generator system) a heavier, larger battery that just meets or exceeds the cranking amps needed but has a large reserve minute capacity will likely give better service and last longer. They tend to be a better value anyway.

 

CCA really means not much. Any battery that doesn't advertise reserve capacity is probably inferior. Like you said they can make rated cca by putting thinner plates and more of them but the battery only needs to do the rated cca for 10 seconds for them to advertise a deceptively high number. I was looking at group 29 batterys and some of them only advertise 77 min reserve. Just lifting a battery will tell you a lot. A heavy battery is probably going to be a good one.

And fwiw, Interstate is the only battery that met their advertised reserve in independent test, actually exceeded advertised rating.

My generator is still capable of making 30 amps but if it ever takes a dump, you can bet there will be a 3G going on in place of it.

 

There isn't a lot of headroom with 30 amps, when the ignition, lights and heater blower are all running. Maybe 5 amps or so left over? And the wiring in these is at least 50 years old. The critical thing for a healthy generator charging system is to make certain there is absolute minimum resistance throughout the electrical system, cables, at block and generator through brackets etc. The regulator will absolutely not work right otherwise. 10 bucks says that's why the reg. points stick too. Clean, bright, tight connections = Happy Electrons.

I sort of enjoy making old school devices and things work as they were done OEM, yes an alternator is a superior system, no argument there. But, it's just interesting to me to learn their rituals, read about them and see how they operate in real life and used as advertised. And an alternator does not look right in an engine bay to my eyes anyway. Silly reasoning there maybe.

One thing they should have never done is mount the unit down so low, where it is exposed to road spray and slush and mud or whatever. There is a rubber boot or splash guard made for these and is reproduced.

The Flathead had them front and center, right on top for easy access. And it is damn awkward to work on otherwise. They are heavy. The last time I installed one in my Y block I pulled a muscle lol.

Note from the chart here that the correct voltage setpoint regulation in a generator system at any given temperature is quite a bit higher than with an alternator system. If you're not seeing these figures, something is wrong. In this instance it makes more sense to suspect corroded wiring or neglected grounds is causing the discrepancy than to to mess with regulator adjustment. Clean everything up first and measure again.

It measured exactly 30 amps per the test in the manual coupled with an NOS regulator and seems to work pretty darn well, actually it maintains proper voltage at a steady cruise with lights and blower on regardless. With a good generator setup it even seems to idle better. Headlights are white and bright, and my night vision isn't what it once was.

 

My system does take the aftermarket SW amp gauge to 30 amps momentarily after startup. I'm not real big on amp gauges, much prefer a volt meter. If the volts are right it doesn't mean beans what the amps are doing really.My generator does not have the rubber boot like the one on my 260 did but there is also a big splash pan from frame to engine under it.
It's been a while since I set the points in a regulator but I think I can still pull it off. We used to put 8 volt batterys in those old AD Chevy farm trucks and tweak the regulator up to make 8+ volts. Enough to get them to crank better but not enough to blow bulbs.
Clean grounds are the first thing to check on any year of vehicle with electrical issues, then on to all the other connections. Even though I know how to do volt drop tests, I seldom do.
Not sure I totally agree with that chart. Any time you start charging over 15 volts, you aren't doing a battery any good. Maybe that's why they had to add water so often back in the day.

 

It depends on the temperature of course. Internal battery resistance goes way up, as the temperature goes down. Consequently a higher voltage is required to get to an equivalent charge level.

The amperage does matter a great deal, because the battery will never get charged up in a reasonable amount of time nor be able to provide enough current for lights, heater blower will be weak etc. On the other hand if it is tweaked too high - generators default to full bore without the regulator regulatin' proper - they will start slinging solder off from the armature and commutator!

 

I respectfully am of a different opinion. If in normal operation, you have a voltmeter and it shows around 1 volt more with the engine running and accessories on than it does with the engine and everything off (with a healthy charged battery), you really don't need to be concerned with amps, your charging system is doing it's job. Usually that's around 12.5 volts at rest and 13.5-14 running. I don't like to see sustained volts near 15 or above because it's hard on batterys
I didn't come up with that idea on my own. I learned it while setting in a week long class put on by Interstate batterys many years ago and it's a rule of thumb that has served me well in my career as an automotive technician. If I get under the hood of a car to check the charging system, I do it quickly with a voltmeter. If it is a thorough diagnosis of a charging problem, then that's a different issue and a matter of preference as to how you approach it.

 

You take classes, and that's good. But there's no substitute for direct experience either. We need both. That's how we learn. If you were to connect a partially or fully discharged battery to a charger in cold temperatures and monitor voltage over time you'll immediately understand why higher voltages are necessary. That's just the way it works, to overcome the battery internal resistance.

 

Just because I took every opportunity to further my education as an automotive technician doesn't mean I don't or didn't have experience. and I wasn't talking about recharging a dead battery in the Arctic, I specifically said that with a healthy battery under normal operating conditions in the vehicle volts are all you really need to monitor. It is called a voltage regulator, not an amperage regulator. What the systems sees and responds to is the voltage. If you prefer an ammeter over a volt meter in your vehicle, that's fine but I don't and gave my explanation why.

 

This is turning into a SHOCKING thread, not sure if that's a cause of voltage or amps

 

Maybe we just need to meditate; ohm ohm ohm ohm ohm ohm ohm ohm

 

Ohm ohm ohm...Watts up with that?

If we look at what is called the "voltage regulator", it actually performs three functions - generator cutout at low RPM, voltage regulation, and current (ampere) regulation.

All three are adjustable, the voltage regulation is temperature compensated, doesn't relate to dash gauges display or ammeters or anything like that, my apologies if I was unclear.

 

No prob. And I was probably mixing apples and oranges because most of my education and theory pertains more to alternators. But somewhere in between ohms law and the full functioning principle of a system, the average gomer needs some sort of simplified in cab monitoring. For some the basic idiot light might be best, others want more information. If you read back, I was talking about what we monitor in the cab and you were referring to something much more in depth.